Diaspora Engagement

December 31, 2025

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Istanbul, Turkey-Istanbul is a city that refuses simplicity. Standing on the Galata Bridge at dusk, watching ferries crisscross the Golden Horn while the call to prayer echoes from a hundred minarets, one is struck by the profound paradox of a place that is at once ancient and modern, sacred and commercial, chaotic yet somehow ordered. The city straddles two continents, bridging Europe and Asia not merely geographically but civilizationally, serving as a living testament to the proposition that history and futurity need not be adversaries. Founded in the seventh century BCE and having served as capital to three great empires—Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman—Istanbul has grown from fewer than one million inhabitants in 1923 to approximately sixteen million today, making it the largest city in Europe and the world’s most visited metropolis, welcoming over twenty million international visitors in 2023 alone [1]. The first and most powerful insight one gleans from walking its streets is that development is not linear. Successful societies layer; they do not erase.

This lesson resonates with particular urgency for Guyana, a small South American nation of approximately 800,000 people that now finds itself at its own civilizational crossroads. On May 10, 2015, ExxonMobil struck oil in waters some one hundred miles off Guyana’s coast—a discovery that energy analysts have called “perhaps the most significant oil find anywhere on the planet in generations” [2]. The resource base, estimated at eleven billion barrels, has since transformed Guyana from one of South America’s poorest nations into the world’s fastest-growing economy. Production began in December 2019, less than five years from discovery—a timeline “nearly unheard of” in the industry—and has since ramped up to 650,000 barrels per day, with projections reaching 1.3 million barrels by 2027 and 1.7 million by 2030 [2]. The country’s GDP, which stood at $4.3 billion in 2015, is projected to reach nearly $26 billion in 2025 and $41 billion by the end of the decade. Guyana was elected to the United Nations Security Council in 2023, and energy historian Daniel Yergin has credited the nation with helping to steady global energy markets amid recent geopolitical upheaval [2]. The transformation has been nothing short of astonishing.

Yet with this promise comes profound peril. The specter of the “resource curse”—the paradox that countries rich in natural resources often experience weaker economic growth, greater corruption, and greater political instability than their resource-poor counterparts—looms large over Guyana’s future [3]. The Harvard International Review has warned that Guyana faces three interrelated challenges: the risk of Dutch disease weakening its non-oil economy, the danger of oil revenues eroding good governance, and the threat of inflamed ethnic tensions as different communities compete for their share of the windfall [3]. Venezuela, Guyana’s neighbor to the west, offers a cautionary tale: petroleum once accounted for more than 75 percent of its exports, and when oil prices collapsed, hyperinflation reached an estimated 65,000 percent by 2019 [3]. The temptation for Guyana will be to imagine development as a clean break from its past—to believe that oil wealth can simply wash away the complexities of colonial history, ethnic division, and post-independence struggle. But as Istanbul’s enduring legacy demonstrates, the challenge is not one of replacement but of integration.

In Istanbul, history is not a relic to be preserved behind glass; it is infrastructure, not ornament. Mosques, markets, universities, and transit systems are built around and within structures that have stood for centuries. The city’s memory is active, not nostalgic. Since 2019, the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality has undertaken an extensive restoration campaign, reopening dozens of previously inaccessible sites ranging from Byzantine-era fortifications to late Ottoman-period factories. The Bulgur Palas, a century-old mansion that once served as an Ottoman Bank archive, has been restored as a cultural center complete with a 150-seat library, exhibition space, garden café, and observation terrace offering sweeping views of the Marmara Sea [1]. A nineteenth-century weaving factory that initially produced fezzes and military uniforms now hosts exhibitions of twentieth-century optical and kinetic art from the Tate Collection [1]. As Mahir Polat, the deputy secretary-general who has spearheaded this restoration drive, observed: “Istanbul cannot fit into a single photograph; wherever you go in the city, you can find these little gems” [1]. The city does not “preserve” history in the sense of freezing it in amber; it uses history, making it a living part of the urban fabric.

For Guyana, this offers a powerful lesson. The nation’s history—marked by colonialism, Indigenous resilience, African enslavement, Indian indentureship, and post-independence struggle—is not a burden to be shed but the very foundation upon which a national identity can be built. The country’s demographic composition reflects this complex heritage: approximately 40 percent of the population is of Indo-Guyanese origin, descendants of Indian indentured workers; 29 to 30 percent are Afro-Guyanese, descendants of enslaved Africans; roughly 20 percent are of mixed heritage; and about 10 percent are Indigenous Amerindians [4]. British “divide-and-rule” policies deliberately pitted these communities against each other, and post-independence politics have often devolved into a zero-sum competition between ethnic blocs, with the Indo-Guyanese-dominated People’s Progressive Party and the Afro-Guyanese-aligned A Partnership for National Unity alternating in power [4]. The country’s motto—”One People, One Nation, One Destiny”—speaks to an aspirational unity that has proven difficult to achieve in practice. Oil wealth must sit atop this memory, not bury it. Colonial history, Indigenous heritage, African resilience, and post-independence struggle are not obstacles to development; they are the infrastructure for national identity.

Istanbul also teaches that the state matters—but so does the street. The city’s efficient public transportation, modern airports, and reliable utilities are evidence of a capable and effective state presence. Yet simultaneously, the streets pulse with the energy of a vibrant informal economy: street vendors hawking simit (sesame-crusted bread rings), family-owned businesses that have operated for generations, artisans crafting traditional wares. The legitimacy of the state, it seems, comes not from absolute control but from balance—from creating a framework within which both the formal and informal economies can thrive. For Guyana, this is a critical lesson. Oil-era governance must strengthen state capacity without suffocating entrepreneurship. The International Monetary Fund has noted that Guyana’s non-oil economy “continues to reflect a solid, broad-based performance across sectors, especially construction and services” [2], suggesting that the country has thus far avoided the worst manifestations of Dutch disease. More than 6,000 Guyanese currently work in support of ExxonMobil’s operations, representing nearly 70 percent of the local oil and gas workforce, and over $2.5 billion has been spent with more than 1,700 Guyanese suppliers over the past decade [2]. Regulation should enable small and medium enterprises, not crowd them out.

Perhaps the most important lesson Istanbul offers is the virtue of patience. The city’s grand mosques, sprawling palaces, and enduring institutions were not built in a single generation. They are the product of centuries of ambition, investment, and long-term thinking. Institutions outlast leaders; long horizons temper political impatience. Guyana’s oil revenues demand 25- to 50-year thinking, particularly in education, infrastructure, and energy transition. Short-term political wins risk long-term national fragility. The country has already taken promising steps in this direction. In 2009—six years before the oil discovery—Guyana launched its pioneering Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS), recognizing that its vast rainforests, which cover roughly two-thirds of its territory and store an estimated 19.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, are vital assets in the global fight against climate change [5]. An early partnership with Norway, which pledged up to $250 million to help preserve these forests, established the strategy’s credibility and provided vital seed funding [5]. When the oil was discovered, Guyana chose not to abandon its environmental commitments but to strengthen them, creating LCDS 2030. In 2022, Guyana became the first nation to receive private-sector validation for forest conservation-based jurisdictional carbon credits, leading to a landmark $750 million agreement with Hess Corporation [5]. The country is now expanding its protected areas from 9 to 30 percent of its land mass by 2030 [5]. Oil wealth is being treated not as an end goal but as a bridge to a sustainable future.

Education is the civilizational glue that holds this vision together. In Istanbul, universities, religious schools, and cultural institutions anchor the city, producing continuity across upheaval. Knowledge is treated as strategic, not decorative. For Guyana, oil revenues must be converted into human capital. Without deep investment in education—technical, civic, and ethical—resource wealth will dissipate. The country is already building twelve hospitals, multiple schools, seven hotels, two large highways, its first deep-water port, and a gas energy plant that will double energy output and halve power bills [3]. But infrastructure alone is not enough. The government must invest in building world-class educational institutions, in training teachers, and in creating a curriculum that prepares citizens for the challenges and opportunities of the twenty-first century. This is the only way to ensure that the benefits of the oil boom are translated into a lasting legacy of prosperity and progress.

A diverse society also requires shared ethical commitments. In Istanbul, faith is visible but not monolithic; public ethics are shaped by shared moral frameworks rather than enforced uniformity. Moral seriousness coexists with pluralism. For Guyana, with its diverse religious and ethnic communities, this offers a model. Fairness, dignity, and accountability cannot be legislated alone; they must be cultivated culturally. President Irfaan Ali’s “One Guyana” initiative, launched in 2020, explicitly aims to heal ethnic rifts and foster national cohesion. The slogan—now printed on passports and currency—is described as “a unifying concept… a rallying cry to bring the diverse cultures and races of our country together” [4]. Whether this initiative can succeed in channeling economic gains into shared national pride, rather than deepening ethnic fault lines, remains to be seen. But the effort itself is essential.

Inequality, too, must be confronted openly. Like any major global city, Istanbul is home to both great wealth and great poverty. The city does not pretend that inequality does not exist; instead, it seeks to manage it through policies that promote social mobility and access to opportunity. Guyana’s oil wealth will widen inequality unless policy is intentional. Transparency, social investment, and regional equity must be explicit priorities. The country’s Natural Resource Fund, a sovereign wealth fund modeled after Norway’s successful example, is a promising step in this direction. Norway’s fund, now valued at more than $1.3 trillion, has helped that nation avoid the resource curse by converting oil windfalls into sustainable growth that is independent of oil [3]. Guyana has also joined the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, which requires member countries to publicly disclose how their governments award resource rights and use oil revenues [3]. In May 2023, a Guyanese court ruled that Exxon must offer an “unlimited guarantee” to cover the cost of a potential oil spill—a ruling that, while appealed, demonstrates the judiciary’s willingness to hold even powerful corporations accountable [3].

Great cities endure because they adapt without forgetting. Failure comes not from change but from unmoored change—transformation that severs the connection to history and values. Istanbul has been transformed by centuries of migration, conquest, and trade, yet it has never lost its essential character. Guyana now stands at a similar hinge moment. Like Istanbul, it can become a place where civilizations meet, where diversity is celebrated, and where economic growth serves as a means to a more just and equitable society. Or it can become a place where opportunity overwhelms cohesion, where the rush to modernize erases the memory of what came before.

Development is ultimately moral, not merely economic. The question is not how fast Guyana grows, but what kind of society that growth produces. Will it be a society that honors its history while building for the future? Will it be a society that invests in its people, not just its infrastructure? Will it be a society that manages its diversity as a source of strength rather than a cause of division? The lessons from Istanbul are clear: successful development requires patience, wisdom, and a deep respect for the layers of history that make a place what it is. Oil will shape Guyana’s economy. Only wisdom will shape its future.

References

[1] Hattam, J. (2024, July 1). Istanbul’s plan to save its cultural soul. BBC Travel. https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240701-istanbuls-plan-to-save-its-cultural-soul

[2] ExxonMobil. (2025, May 16). High-speed Guyana: An energy superpower practically overnight. ExxonMobil. https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/locations/guyana/news-releases/an-energy-superpower-practically-overnight

[3] Mao, W. (2023, September 27). A Path to Prosperity for Oil-Rich Guyana. Harvard International Review. https://hir.harvard.edu/a-path-to-prosperity-for-oil-rich-guyana/

[4] Blackman, T. R. (2025, March 23). Guyana’s National Identity in Comparative Perspective: Lessons from Switzerland and Turkey. Guyana Business Journal. https://guyanabusinessjournal.com/2025/03/guyanas-national-identity-in-comparative-perspective-lessons-from-switzerland-and-turkey/

[5] Diaz, L. (2024, December 16). Guyana’s low-carbon model for resource-led development. Atlantic Council. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/energysource/guyanas-low-carbon-model-for-resource-led-development/

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Editor’s Note

Editor’s Note

This marks the final GBJ Essay of 2025. As Guyana stands at the threshold of a transformative decade, we remain committed to rigorous, independent analysis that honors the intelligence of our readers. We do not traffic in easy answers or comfortable narratives. Instead, we ask difficult questions, examine inconvenient data, and insist that a nation’s future deserves more than cheerleading—it demands clear-eyed assessment.

If our work has served you this year—if it has sharpened your thinking, challenged your assumptions, or simply provided a space for serious engagement with the forces reshaping our country—we ask you to support it. Independence is not free. The work of approximating truth, holding power accountable, and imagining what Guyana might yet become requires resources and resolve.

From all of us at the Guyana Business Journal, we wish you a reflective close to 2025 and a purposeful New Year. The work continues in 2026. The questions remain. The stakes have never been higher.

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The Guyana Business Journal Editorial Board welcomes reflections and submissions at terrence.blackman@guyanabusinessjournal.com.

December 28, 2025

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Berlin, Germany—To walk through Berlin is to walk through a city that has refused to forget its failures. On an ordinary street, the laughter from a café spills onto a sidewalk where, not long ago, a wall stood as a stark emblem of a nation’s brokenness. The city’s present is built upon the rubble of its past, a constant, quiet conversation between everyday life and extraordinary history. For us, as Guyanese, standing at our own momentous crossroads, this city of scars and rebirth holds up a mirror. It forces us to ask: What does a city that once failed, fractured, and rebuilt have to teach a young oil state on the cusp of its own destiny?

Guyana is in the midst of a geological and historical event that will define the nation, for better or for worse, for generations to come. The discovery of vast oil reserves has unleashed a torrent of wealth that is reshaping our society at a pace our institutions can barely keep up with. This is our moment of renewal, our opportunity to channel our new resources wisely and to cultivate a stronger, more unified sense of national identity. Yet, as we stand on this threshold, Berlin’s story serves as a critical reminder: development without historical honesty is a fragile foundation. Germany’s path to stability was paved with a resolute refusal to erase its most difficult history, a process they call Vergangenheitsbewältigung—a coming to terms with the past. For Guyana, a nation forged from its own complex history of division and reconciliation, this lesson is paramount. Our newfound oil wealth cannot be a substitute for a clear-eyed reckoning with the forces that have shaped us; it must be the catalyst for building a future grounded in shared understanding and truth.

The parallels between post-war Berlin and oil-era Guyana are instructive, though not perfect. Germany was rebuilt with Marshall Plan aid and the discipline of European integration; Guyana faces different pressures and possesses different institutional starting points. Yet both nations confront a fundamental question: how to transform a crisis or a windfall into sustainable prosperity while bridging deep social divisions. The answers Germany found—through patience, institution-building, and an unflinching confrontation with its past—offer valuable guidance, even as we must chart our own distinctly Guyanese path.

The scale of Guyana’s ambitions can be measured in concrete and steel. The Gas-to-Energy Project in Wales, at approximately US$2 billion, will pipe natural gas from offshore fields to a 300-megawatt power plant. A US$604 million investment will expand the Corentyne Highway in Berbice. The US$285 million Berbice Deep Water Port will position Guyana as a regional export hub. The New Demerara River Bridge, completed in October 2025 at a cost of US$260 million and designed to last a century, already carries traffic across the river. The US$161 million New Amsterdam Hospital is rising as a state-of-the-art regional facility, while the US$161 million Soesdyke-Linden Highway reconstruction will convert an aging roadway into a modern transportation artery. These six projects alone represent nearly US$3.5 billion in public investment—a figure that would have been unimaginable a decade ago when annual government budgets rarely exceeded US$1 billion. The contrast is staggering: Guyana is now undertaking, in just a few years, infrastructure investments that dwarf anything attempted in the pre-oil era. To better appreciate this, observe that Guyana’s cumulative government expenditure from 1997 to 2019 (over two decades) totaled roughly US$12-15 billion. These six infrastructure projects alone account for nearly one-quarter of the government’s total spending during the entire pre-oil era! The scale is staggering—and it underscores both the unprecedented opportunity and the concomitant institutional challenges we face.

Berlin’s post-war recovery was not the work of heroic individuals or grand pronouncements. It was anchored in the patient, often tedious, construction of robust institutions: a strong civil service, rule-based governance, and independent courts and media. This is a critical insight for us, where the sudden influx of oil revenue will amplify the character of our existing institutions, for better or for worse. As the Inter-American Development Bank has noted, for new oil producers, “the importance of capacity building, particularly to equip countries new to oil, gas, or mining development for the specialized tasks of oversight,” cannot be overstated [1]. The temptation to bypass these foundational elements for the allure of rapid, visible projects is immense. But as the German experience shows, there are no shortcuts to sustainable prosperity. Oil revenues do not substitute for strong institutions; they demand them.

Consider Norway, which discovered oil in 1969 but waited 21 years to establish its sovereign wealth fund in 1990, and another 26 years before making its first withdrawal in 2016. During those intervening decades, Norway invested oil revenues in education, healthcare, and infrastructure while building the institutional capacity to manage unprecedented wealth. Today, its fund holds over US$1.9 trillion. The lesson is clear: patience in institution-building pays generational dividends. For Guyana, this means resisting the pressure to spend oil revenues as quickly as they arrive. It means investing in the Environmental Protection Agency’s technical capacity to monitor offshore operations in real time. It means ensuring that the Department of Energy has petroleum engineers capable of challenging ExxonMobil’s technical assertions. It means building procurement systems that can handle billion-dollar contracts without corruption. These are unglamorous tasks that won’t generate headlines or ribbon-cutting ceremonies, but they are the bedrock upon which lasting prosperity is built.

Growth in Berlin has been managed with deliberate guardrails, creating a dynamic tension between economic expansion, social protection, and cultural preservation. This stands in stark contrast to the winner-take-all model of growth that has plagued many resource-rich nations. For Guyana, the lesson is clear: growth must be designed to include, or it will inevitably divide. The Atlantic Council has highlighted the need for a “long-term national development plan” with “clear priorities and timelines” to ensure that the benefits of the oil boom are shared equitably and do not merely exacerbate existing inequalities[2].  This is the civic architecture of a true commonwealth, where the child born poorest still receives the richest opportunities.

Guyana’s own history of ethnic political division—the persistent tensions between Indo-Guyanese and Afro-Guyanese communities—makes this imperative even more urgent. Oil revenues concentrated in Georgetown or allocated primarily to politically favored regions will only deepen the fractures that have plagued our democracy since independence. Our national motto—One People, One Nation, One Destiny—must become more than rhetoric. It must be reflected in how contracts are awarded, how revenues are distributed, and which communities benefit from infrastructure investment. The long tail of inequality between East and West Berlin, decades after the fall of the Wall, is a sobering reminder of the cost of division and the immense price of repair. Reunification was not a singular event but a multi-decade project, and the economic and social disparities have proven stubbornly persistent. As one analysis notes, Germany’s experience suggests that “economic reintegration can take generations, not years.”[3]

This is a crucial warning for us: our own social fractures will not heal automatically with money alone. The hard work of bridging divides requires patience, deliberate policy, and a shared commitment to a common future. When the oil wells run dry in thirty or forty years, will we look back and say that we used this wealth to bind our nation together, or that we allowed it to drive us further apart? The evidence from other oil-rich nations is not encouraging. Nigeria’s oil wealth has exacerbated regional and ethnic tensions rather than bridging them. Venezuela’s resource bonanza enriched political elites while leaving the majority mired in poverty and division. Guyana has the advantage of learning from these failures. But learning requires the political courage to make decisions that may not be popular in the short term but are essential for long-term national cohesion.

Berlin’s emphasis on education as a tool for nation-building, rather than simply workforce training, offers another vital lesson. The German model, with its focus on apprenticeships, technical mastery, and cultural education, is designed to form citizens rather than provide labor inputs. For Guyana, an oil-era education policy must be equally ambitious, shaping not only the competence of our workforce but also the character and civic responsibility of our people. This means moving beyond the narrow goal of training petroleum engineers and accountants for the oil sector. It means cultivating critical thinking, historical consciousness, and ethical reasoning in our young people. It means ensuring that every Guyanese child, regardless of ethnicity or geography, has access to world-class education. This is the bedrock upon which a resilient and prosperous nation is built. We should ask ourselves: Are we investing oil revenues in teachers’ salaries and training? Are we building schools in hinterland communities with the same enthusiasm we put into building highways? Are we creating scholarship programs that will send our brightest minds to study governance, public policy, and institutional design? These investments may not generate immediate returns, but they will determine whether Guyana in 2060 is a well-governed, prosperous democracy or another cautionary tale of squandered resource wealth.

Germany’s political culture of restraint—its constitutional limits, coalition politics, and deep-seated skepticism of strongmen—offers a powerful counter-narrative to the politics of personality that often accompany resource booms. Democracy is sustained through habits and practices, not slogans and proclamations. For Guyana, the discipline of democratic practice will be the ultimate safeguard against the corrosive pressures of newfound wealth. This is perhaps the most challenging lesson to internalize. Oil wealth creates powerful incentives for the concentration of executive power. When billions of dollars flow through government coffers, the temptation to bypass parliamentary oversight, ignore opposition voices, and reward political loyalists becomes almost irresistible. Venezuela’s transformation from democracy to autocracy was lubricated by oil revenues that made Hugo Chávez and his successors less accountable to citizens and more dependent on patronage networks.

Guyana’s democratic institutions—however imperfect—must be strengthened, not circumvented. This means transparent procurement processes for oil-sector contracts. It means publishing quarterly financial reports showing how cost-oil calculations are made. It means allowing opposition-nominated members to serve on the Natural Resource Fund board. It means tolerating critical journalism and civil society oversight, even when they are inconvenient. These democratic practices may slow decision-making, but they prevent the catastrophic failures that have befallen less accountable petrostates.

Berlin’s story is a warning against the perils of historical amnesia, winner-take-all politics, and the illusion that prosperity alone can guarantee social cohesion. As I walk these streets, where life continues to flourish in the shadow of a fallen wall, the city’s quiet message is one of hope, but also of caution. Repair is possible, but only with patience, honesty, and discipline. For us, as Guyanese, the path forward is laden with both promise and peril. The oil can finance our future, but only memory, institutions, and education can sustain it. We are not doomed to repeat the mistakes of Nigeria or Venezuela. We have advantages they lacked: a small, educated population; abundant freshwater; proximity to major markets; and the benefit of learning from others’ failures.

But advantages alone do not guarantee success. They must be activated through wise governance, inclusive development, and democratic accountability. The question before us is not whether we have been blessed with oil, but whether we will have the wisdom to manage that blessing for generations yet unborn. This is the work of our generation: to build a nation worthy of its immense blessings, a nation that finally and fully grows into the promise of its founding motto—One People, One Nation, One Destiny. Berlin’s answer, written in concrete and constitutional limits, is that wisdom requires patience, honesty, and the courage to choose long-term prosperity over short-term consumption. The question is whether we will heed that lesson before it is too late.

References

[1] Balza, L., Clarke, D., & Gauto Gunther, V. F. (2020, December 7). Bucking the trend: Why institutions matter in Guyana’s hydrocarbon sector. Inter-American Development Bank. https://www.iadb.org/en/bucking-trend-why-institutions-matter-guyanas-hydrocarbon-sector

[2] Goldwyn, D. L. (2023, November 16). Six steps Guyana can take to avoid the resource curse. Atlantic Council. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/energysource/six-steps-guyana-can-take-to-avoid-the-resource-curse/

[3] Hungerland, W-F. (2025, June 2). Germany’s reunification: what lessons for policy-makers today? Economics Observatory. https://www.economicsobservatory.com/germanys-reunification-what-lessons-for-policy-makers-today

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Editor’s Note

This is the last GBJ Sunday Essay of 2025. We believe that Guyana’s oil moment demands rigorous, independent analysis and commentary. We endeavor to treat readers as citizens capable of handling complexity, not consumers to be flattered. If you have found value in our work, we invite you to sustain it. Independence and a genuine attempt to approximate the truth have a cost. Your generosity ensures we can continue to hold up the mirror, grapple with difficult questions, continue the work of holding power accountable, and imagine the nation we might yet become. From all of us at the Guyana Business Journal, we wish you a peaceful close to 2025 and a prosperous New Year.  The conversation continues in 2026.

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The Guyana Business Journal Editorial Board welcomes reflections and submissions at terrence.blackman@guyanabusinessjournal.com.

December 23, 2025

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Copenhagen, Denmark-Six thousand Guyanese dollars for a bunch of plantains. That, in a nutshell, is the price of building Rome overnight. Guyana, the newest petro-state on the block, is discovering what Norway learned half a century ago and what the Dutch discovered before that: oil wealth is a mixed blessing. From the rather different vantage point of Copenhagen—a city more accustomed to pickled herring than plantains—the dynamics at play in Georgetown are strikingly familiar.

The arithmetic is straightforward. Construction is booming at nearly 30% growth. Retail and wholesale trade are expanding rapidly. Gold prices are up. All of this is pulling labour away from the fields and into the cities [1]. Meanwhile, wages are rising, cash is flowing, and a growing population—swelled by oil workers and Venezuelan migrants—is demanding more food. Supply is down; demand is up. Prices, inevitably, follow.

The Bank of Guyana’s latest figures show food prices climbing 5.8% in the first half of 2025, with vegetables up a rather eye-watering 18% [1]. The International Monetary Fund, in its customarily diplomatic way, has flagged “labour shortages” and “wage pressures” as concerns [2]. Translation: the boom is overheating.

This is textbook Dutch Disease, the economic malady named after the Netherlands’ unhappy experience with natural gas in the 1960s. The symptoms are well known: a resource windfall drives up the exchange rate and wages, making traditional exports uncompetitive and sucking workers out of agriculture and manufacturing. Norway caught the bug, too, but managed to treat it. Denmark, though not an oil giant, has long wrestled with how to keep farmers profitable in a high-wage economy. Both offer lessons for Guyana—if it cares to listen.

Consider first the Danish model. Denmark’s agricultural prowess is built not on vast prairies or cheap labour, but on farmer-owned cooperatives. The movement began in the 19th century, when Danish farmers, facing stiff competition from larger producers, decided that if they could not beat them individually, they would join forces collectively [4]. They pooled resources to build their own dairies, slaughterhouses, and export companies. The principle was simple: one farmer, one vote; profits shared in proportion to contribution. “Collaboration,” as the Danes like to say, “is the essence of Denmark’s DNA within food and agriculture” [4].

What is less well known is that Guyana was doing something remarkably similar—and rather earlier. In the 1830s and 1840s, freed slaves pooled their meager savings and purchased abandoned sugar estates. History records that they carried their money in wheelbarrows to pay for their purchases [8]. These “village cooperatives” were, in effect, the first cooperatives in the Caribbean. Many eventually failed—starved of credit, denied access to technology, and actively sabotaged by the planter class—but the spirit endured. It was this spirit that led Guyana, in 1970, to declare itself the world’s first “Co-operative Republic,” with the lofty aim of making “the small man the real man” [9].

The experiment did not end well. By the 1980s, Guyana’s cooperative sector had become a vehicle for political patronage rather than economic empowerment. As a government policy document later admitted, with commendable candour, it was “the attempt to foist socio-political objectives on the movement” that was to blame, not the cooperative model itself [9]. The institutions survived—the Kuru Kuru Cooperative College still exists—but the movement withered.

The lesson is not that cooperatives do not work. They manifestly do, as Denmark’s Arla Foods and Danish Crown attest. The lesson is that cooperatives work when they are grounded in member autonomy, sound business principles, and freedom from political interference. Guyana has the historical foundation; what it needs is a modern framework. A National Cooperative Development Program, offering training, credit, and technical support, could help revive a proud tradition and give small farmers the collective muscle to capture more value from the food chain.

Norway’s contribution to this discussion is rather different. When oil was discovered on the Norwegian continental shelf in 1969, the country was already a stable democracy with a competent bureaucracy [5]. This mattered enormously. The Norwegians established a sovereign wealth fund in 1990 and, in 2001, adopted a fiscal rule limiting government spending to the expected real return on the fund—originally 4%, now 3% [5]. The philosophy, as one economist put it, was that “the resources belong to the nation, and the development should benefit the society as a whole, including future generations” [5].

Guyana has its own Natural Resource Fund, but the temptation to spend is proving hard to resist. The IMF has noted, with evident concern, that recent increases in the withdrawal ceiling have provided “substantial room to expand capital expenditure” [2]. This is polite IMF-speak for “you are spending too fast.” Without a credible fiscal anchor, the NRF risks becoming a piggy bank for the present rather than a nest egg for the future. Norway’s experience suggests that the political will to save is as important as the institutional machinery.

Copenhagen offers a third lesson, this time in urban food policy. The Danish capital has used its considerable purchasing power to reshape the food system. Ninety percent of food served in public institutions—schools, hospitals, daycares—must now be organic, with a significant share sourced locally [6]. The city has also launched campaigns to reduce food waste and promote food literacy. The result is a virtuous circle: public procurement supports local farmers, who in turn supply healthier food to public institutions.

Denmark is not, it should be noted, immune to food price inflation. The Danmarks Nationalbank reported in September 2025 that food prices had risen 32% since 2021, double the rate of overall consumer prices [7]. But the central bank’s analysis pointed to global supply-side factors—weather, disease, commodity markets—rather than domestic policy failures. The implication is clear: governments cannot control global food prices, but they can address local supply constraints and use public procurement to support domestic producers.

What, then, should Guyana do? Four things, primarily. First, launch a National Cooperative Development Program to revive and modernise the cooperative tradition, equipping farmers with the skills and capital to compete. Second, strengthen the fiscal rule governing the Natural Resource Fund, committing to a spending limit that prevents overheating and ensures intergenerational equity. Third, develop a National Food and Nutrition Security Strategy that uses public procurement to support local agriculture and promote healthier diets. Fourth, invest in agricultural research and development to fund innovation in climate-resilient crops and sustainable farming practices.

None of this will be easy. The political pressures to spend are intense, and the benefits of restraint are often invisible—the inflation that did not happen, the crisis that was averted. But the alternative is clear enough. Countries that squander resource windfalls tend to end up poorer, not richer, than they started. The “resource curse” is not inevitable, but avoiding it requires foresight, discipline, and a willingness to learn from others.

From Copenhagen, the view is clear. Guyana has the resources, the history, and the opportunity to chart a different course. The Nordic nations did not achieve their prosperity by accident. They built institutions, invested in people, and made difficult choices. Guyana can do the same—if it chooses. The price of a bunch of plantains is, in the end, a small thing. But it is also a symptom of a much larger challenge: whether Guyana’s oil wealth will be a blessing or a curse. The answer lies not in the ground, but in the choices made above it.

References

[1] Bank of Guyana. (2025). Half Year Report 2025.

[2] International Monetary Fund. (2025). Guyana: 2025 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Guyana. IMF Staff Country Reports, 2025(103).

[3] The Caribbean Camera. (2025, July 24). Guyana Powers Regional Food Security Goals. The Caribbean Camera.

[4] Food Nation Denmark. (n.d.). The Danish Cooperative Movement. Retrieved from https://foodnationdenmark.com/wp-content/uploads/Factsheet_DanishCooperativeMovement_WEB.pdf

[5] Holden, S. (2013). Avoiding the resource curse: The case of Norway. Energy Policy, 63, 870-876.

[6] The City of Copenhagen. (2019). The City of Copenhagen’s Food Strategy. Retrieved from https://maaltider.kk.dk/sites/default/files/2022-06/The%20City%20of%20Copenhagen%20Food%20Strategy%202019.pdf

[7] Danmarks Nationalbank. (2025, September 24). Global factors are driving high food prices in Denmark and abroad. Analysis No. 20.

[8] Permanent Mission of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana to the United Nations. (2019, February 19). Presentation on the Cooperative Movement in Guyana at the Commission for Social Development Side Event. Retrieved from https://www.un.int/guyana/fr/statements_speeches/presentation-cooperative-movement-guyana-commission-social-development-side

[9] Parliament of Guyana. (n.d.). The Government of Guyana Co-operative Policy. Retrieved from https://parliament.gov.gy/documents/documents-laid/6239-the_government_of_guyana_co-operative_policy.pdf

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Guyana Business Journal
Website: https://guyanabusinessjournal.com
Mission: Fostering critical dialogue and thought leadership that contribute to securing an open, prosperous, and inclusive Guyana

Editor’s Note

📢 Please support the Guyana Business Journal & Magazine today

The Guyana Business Journal is committed to delivering thoughtful, data-driven insights on the most critical issues shaping Guyana’s future—from oil and gas to climate change, governance, and development. We invite you to support us if you value and believe in the importance of independent Guyanese-led analysis. Your contributions help us sustain rigorous research, expand access, and amplify the voices of informed individuals across the Caribbean and the diaspora.

The Guyana Business Journal Editorial Board welcomes reflections and submissions at terrence.blackman@guyanabusinessjournal.com.

December 21, 2025

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Fortune has smiled on Guyana. Since 2022, the country’s economy has expanded at an average annual rate of 47%—growth so rapid that the International Monetary Fund’s statisticians have had to double-check their calculations. Vast offshore oil reserves, discovered less than a decade ago, are transforming this former British colony from one of South America’s poorest nations into one of its fastest-growing. The question is whether it will also become one of its most prosperous.

History offers little comfort. Venezuela sits atop some of the world’s largest oil reserves yet remains mired in economic collapse. Nigeria’s oil wealth has enriched a few while leaving most Nigerians poor. The ‘resource curse’—the paradox whereby countries rich in natural resources often perform worse economically than those without them—is well documented. Guyana’s challenge is to avoid this fate. That requires more than good intentions. It demands a coherent strategy to convert temporary resource revenues into permanent prosperity.

Such a strategy must rest on five pillars: macroeconomic discipline, economic diversification, human-capital investment, strategic infrastructure, and inclusive growth. Together, these will position Guyana as a regional leader in food and energy security, a model for sustainable development, and a place where opportunity extends beyond Georgetown’s elite. Separately, or pursued half-heartedly, they risk squandering a generational windfall.

Start with fiscal discipline. Oil revenues flooding into an economy faster than productive capacity can expand create predictable problems: inflation, currency appreciation that undermines non-oil exports, and dangerous dependence on volatile commodity prices. The IMF has already warned of these risks in Guyana. President Irfaan Ali’s recent announcement of a $100,000 cash grant to every adult citizen, alongside increased pensions and reduced vehicle duties, has intensified the debate. Critics decry fiscal recklessness. Supporters argue for redistribution after decades of deprivation. Both miss the point.

The question is not whether to share oil wealth with citizens, but how to do so strategically. A universal grant is justified as a dividend on national patrimony—but only within a disciplined framework. That means coordinating with the central bank to manage inflation, perhaps through staggered distribution; transparent accounting showing how transfers fit within the Natural Resource Fund’s sustainable withdrawal rate; and simultaneous investment in productive capacity to expand supply alongside demand. Without such discipline, well-intentioned handouts bid up prices, enriching merchants while eroding the grants’ real value.

What Guyana really needs is a fiscal rule. Norway offers the proven model: only the expected real return on its sovereign wealth fund (roughly 3% annually) is included in the budget. This ensures temporary windfalls become permanent income streams while protecting against boom-bust cycles. The alternative—treating each year’s oil revenues as ‘found money’ for politically expedient spending—invites disaster.

Fiscal discipline, however, merely prevents catastrophe. Building prosperity requires diversification. The actual test is whether Guyana thrives when oil production eventually declines. That means leveraging natural advantages—1.6m hectares of arable land, abundant water, tropical biodiversity, strategic location—to create resilient growth engines beyond petroleum.

Agriculture offers immediate promise. Global food insecurity, worsened by climate change and conflict, creates opportunities for producers. Yet Guyana remains stuck in subsistence farming and rice monoculture. Imagine instead a network of modern agro-processing facilities in regions 2, 5, and 6, handling high-value crops: cocoa, coffee, tropical fruits, and aquaculture. A single processing plant for non-traditional crops—cassava derivatives, plantain products, passion fruit concentrate—operating at 75,000 tons annually could generate 800-1,200 direct jobs and $50m-80m in export revenues. Multiply this across regions with different specializations, connect to cold-chain logistics serving Trinidad, Barbados, and Jamaica, and agriculture transforms from a subsistence activity to a strategic industry.

Energy offers another avenue. The Gas-to-Energy project, due for completion in 2026, will slash electricity costs by half, bringing industrial power to 5-7 cents per kilowatt-hour—among the hemisphere’s cheapest. That enables energy-intensive industries: data centers, aluminum processing, cold storage, and light manufacturing. But simply subsidizing domestic consumption wastes the opportunity. Guyana should become a renewable-energy hub, manufacturing solar components and energy-storage systems for Caribbean markets, developing expertise in hybrid solar-gas systems, and training the region’s renewable-energy technicians.

Tourism, too, beckons. Pristine rainforests, dramatic waterfalls, and unique biodiversity attract visitors—but mass tourism suits neither Guyana’s ecology nor infrastructure. The Low Carbon Development Strategy rightly emphasizes high-value, low-impact experiences: eco-lodges, adventure tourism to Kaieteur Falls and the Rupununi savannahs, cultural tourism highlighting Indigenous heritage. Growing visitors from 300,000 annually to 500,000 by 2030, while increasing per-visitor spending from $800 to $1,500, could generate $750m in annual revenue while preserving environmental integrity.

Yet none of this happens without people. Guyana faces acute skills shortages: engineers, doctors, teachers, agricultural technicians, and ICT specialists. The World Bank documented this deficit in 2022; rapid growth has intensified it. Brain drain compounds the problem, as North America and Britain lure talent with higher pay. Healthcare illustrates the challenge: achieving acceptable outcomes requires 500-700 additional doctors, 2,000-2,500 nurses, and hundreds of specialists over the next decade. Building hospitals without training staff to run them solves nothing.

The solution demands scale. Expand medical education through partnerships with regional schools and bonded scholarships. Retain professionals with competitive pay, modern facilities, and career paths. Deploy telemedicine to connect hinterland communities to specialists. Recruit diaspora professionals with incentives. Education needs similar attention: curriculum revision emphasizing critical thinking, STEM literacy, and entrepreneurship; a national teacher-training university with rigorous standards; and competitive salaries to retain top graduates in classrooms. For technical training, adopt German-style apprenticeships pairing classroom instruction with workplace experience in petroleum services, renewable energy, agro-processing, hospitality, and software development.

Retention requires more than pay. Housing programs for rural professionals, student-loan forgiveness for domestic service, and quality-of-life investments—cultural facilities, safe communities—make Guyana attractive to the educated. The annual cost might reach $200m-300m. But an economy unable to execute its development strategy ends up costing more.

Infrastructure stitches it together. The government’s $209bn allocation for roads and bridges signals commitment; strategic prioritization determines success. Three investments matter most. First, seamless coast-to-hinterland transport: the Linden-Lethem corridor connects to Brazilian markets and integrates regions 8, 9, and 10; upgraded Berbice crossings reduce agricultural export costs. Second, port modernization: Georgetown currently handles 450,000 TEUs annually without deep-water capacity for modern vessels. Upgrading to 1m TEUs with deep-water berths and digital logistics would cut shipping costs 20-30% and establish Georgetown as a Caribbean transshipment hub. Third, digital infrastructure: universal high-speed internet—including hinterland communities—enables telemedicine, distance learning, and digital finance. At $ 150m–$200 m for nationwide fiber and satellite coverage, it costs less than traditional infrastructure yet transforms inclusive growth.

Climate vulnerability demands that every road, bridge, and sea defense incorporate resilience: elevated roadways in flood zones, enhanced coastal defenses protecting agricultural belts, upgraded drainage for Georgetown, and climate-resistant building standards. Upfront costs run 15-25% higher than conventional construction. But infrastructure requiring constant repairs or becoming obsolete as climate impacts intensify costs far more.

Ultimately, success means improving lives, not just GDP figures. Growth that concentrates benefits in Georgetown while leaving the hinterlands behind, or enriches elites while most struggle, proves neither sustainable nor desirable. True prosperity spreads broadly. Universal transfers like the $100,000 grant provide immediate relief, but targeted programs work better: conditional cash transfers tied to school attendance and health checkups; subsidized skills training for unemployed youth; microfinance for small entrepreneurs; robust pensions. These should be efficient, transparent, and regularly evaluated.

For Indigenous and hinterland communities, inclusion means empowerment: secure land tenure and resource rights; participation in natural resource decisions affecting their territories; capacity-building for community enterprises in sustainable forestry, ecotourism, and traditional crafts; and guaranteed revenue-sharing from resource extraction. Free, Prior, and Informed Consent must be a substantive partnership, not a procedural checkbox.

Environmental stewardship isn’t just ethical—it’s economic. Standing forests generate $100m-150m annually through REDD+ and carbon credits while providing ecosystem services—watershed protection, biodiversity, and climate regulation—that are worth more than timber extraction. The LCDS 2030 framework is sound; implementation requires rigorous environmental assessments, vigorous enforcement against illegal logging and mining, investment in protected areas, and research into sustainable non-timber forest products. Transparent governance completes the picture: public access to Natural Resource Fund accounts; procurement minimizing corruption; participatory local budgeting; independent oversight with real authority. Transparency builds trust and ensures oil wealth serves national, not partisan, interests.

Guyana faces perhaps its most consequential moment since independence. The oil wealth is real; the opportunities, genuine; the potential, unprecedented. But potential isn’t destiny. Resource-rich nations routinely squander such moments through corruption, short-term thinking, and failure to convert temporary revenues into permanent assets. What Guyana urgently needs is a comprehensive economic strategy that integrates fiscal policy, diversification, human capital, infrastructure, and inclusion into a coherent framework. Every major decision—cash grants, infrastructure projects, social programs—should be evaluated not in isolation but against a simple test: does this contribute to permanent, sustainable, broad-based prosperity?

This correspondent wrote more optimistically about Guyana’s prospects in 2017, when oil discoveries seemed to promise easy transformation. Eight years on, having watched opportunities seized and missed, strategic clarity alternating with ad-hoc decisions, optimism has tempered. The path to success appears narrower, challenges more formidable, and political temptations more persistent. Yet success remains possible. Guyana has resources. It has examples—Norway, Botswana, the UAE—proving resource curses can be avoided through disciplined leadership and long-term vision. It has a talented diaspora ready to contribute and a young population hungry for better futures. What it needs is leadership that articulates a compelling vision and pursues it consistently, despite political cycles and economic fluctuations.

The vision itself is clear: Guyana as a regional leader in food and energy security, a model for sustainable resource-led development, and a nation where young people in Lethem or Mabaruma access the same quality education, healthcare, and opportunities as those in Georgetown. Achieving it requires choosing strategy over expedience, long-term investment over short-term consumption, shared prosperity over concentrated wealth. The choice is Guyana’s. The time is now.

Sources

International Monetary Fund; Government of Guyana Low Carbon Development Strategy; World Bank Guyana Human Capital Project; U.S. Department of State Investment Climate Statements; Atlantic Council; various Guyanese government sources and local media.

📢 Please support the Guyana Business Journal & Magazine today

Guyana Business Journal
Website: https://guyanabusinessjournal.com
Mission: Fostering critical dialogue and thought leadership that contribute to securing an open, prosperous, and inclusive Guyana

Editor’s Note

📢 Please support the Guyana Business Journal & Magazine today

The Guyana Business Journal is committed to delivering thoughtful, data-driven insights on the most critical issues shaping Guyana’s future—from oil and gas to climate change, governance, and development. We invite you to support us if you value and believe in the importance of independent Guyanese-led analysis. Your contributions help us sustain rigorous research, expand access, and amplify the voices of informed individuals across the Caribbean and the diaspora.

The Guyana Business Journal Editorial Board welcomes reflections and submissions at terrence.blackman@guyanabusinessjournal.com.

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On December 17, 2025, the Guyana Business Journal hosted a critical conversation between Dr. Terrence Blackman and Dr. Vincent Adams examining Guyana’s unprecedented transformation from one of the poorest nations in the Western Hemisphere to one of the world’s fastest-growing economies. With oil production reaching 900,000 barrels per day^[1] and the Natural Resource Fund standing at $3.64 billion^[2], the webinar addressed fundamental questions about governance, transparency, environmental protection, and intergenerational equity. Dr. Adams, who served as Executive Director of Guyana’s Environmental Protection Agency from 2018 to 2020^[3] and spent three decades at the United States Department of Energy, brought unparalleled technical expertise and insider knowledge to a discussion that revealed systemic challenges in contract terms, regulatory oversight, environmental safeguards, and the absence of transparent financial reporting.

The conversation underscored a central tension: while Guyana possesses extraordinary natural resource wealth—potentially exceeding the reported 11 billion barrels of recoverable oil—the nation risks squandering this blessing through inadequate governance, insufficient regulatory capacity, and unsustainable fiscal policies. Dr. Adams opened by challenging the widely cited figure of 11 billion barrels of recoverable oil reserves, noting this estimate dates to 2022 despite more than twenty discoveries since then. “I don’t believe it’s 11 billion—it’s much more than that,” he stated emphatically. Even using the conservative estimate, Guyana ranks as the 18th largest oil reserve holder globally, surpassing Mexico by a factor of two and exceeding the United Kingdom’s reserves.

Beyond oil, Guyana possesses advantages that oil-rich Middle Eastern nations lack: abundant freshwater, favorable weather, and a small population of approximately 836,000^[4]. “We have the potential to become by far the richest country on the planet,” Dr. Adams emphasized. “We have water, in contrast to the rich countries in the Middle East—all they have is sand and oil, and they’ve become rich. So why can’t we?” Yet Dr. Adams was quick to temper optimism with stark warnings. “You can have all the opportunities in the world, the only thing that matters is what you do with that opportunity? It’s all about how well you govern the oil industry.”

He invoked the cautionary tales of Nigeria and Venezuela, nations that squandered their oil wealth through corruption, mismanagement, and weak institutions. The central question, he argued, is not whether Guyana has been blessed with oil, but whether the nation has the wisdom, institutions, and political will to manage that blessing for the benefit of current and future generations. The answer to that question, based on Dr. Adams’ frank assessment, is deeply troubling.

The Governance Challenge

“The most important thing in terms of governance is proper oversight.”

Dr. Adams stated unequivocally. Drawing on his experience at the highest levels of U.S. government, he emphasized that effective regulators must possess equal or greater technical capacity than the companies they oversee. “I worked at the highest level of US government, and the one thing we made certain of was that we invested heavily in making certain that we had the same or more firepower than the contractors that we oversaw.” In contrast, Guyana’s Environmental Protection Agency currently lacks even a single employee with formal training in oil and gas operations. “There’s not a single person in the EPA right now who has even one hour of training in oil and gas,” Dr. Adams revealed. “It’s been over five, six years now.”

During his tenure as EPA Executive Director, Dr. Adams took decisive action to address this deficit. He secured $1 million from the World Bank to establish a petroleum unit within the EPA, staffed by a six-member team of highly qualified professionals with five to ten years of experience. This team was designed to be stationed on FPSO vessels around the clock to monitor operations in real time. He initiated a program to sponsor EPA employees for advanced training in petroleum engineering and environmental management, requiring five years of return service to the agency. He collaborated with the University of Guyana to establish a petroleum engineering department, expected to begin producing graduates by 2022. He arranged for Guyanese employees to attend ExxonMobil’s specialized training university in Houston. “All of that was scrapped,” Dr. Adams stated simply, after the change in government in 2020.

The dismantling of these capacity-building programs has left Guyana’s regulatory agencies ill-equipped to challenge the technical assertions of multinational oil companies, creating an asymmetry of power that favors corporate interests over national welfare. Dr. Adams highlighted a critical success factor from his EPA tenure: institutional independence. “The reason why I was so successful in transforming the EPA was because there was zero interference from the president. With all the controversies—we used to be shutting down operations, including Exxon—the president, nor Joe Harmon, nor nobody ever called me and interfered with what we were doing.” This independence has been systematically dismantled. The Department of Energy, which Dr. Adams and Dr. Mark Bynoe had established to provide specialized oversight of the energy sector, was immediately disbanded after the 2020 election.

The 2016 Production Sharing Agreement

The 14.5% Reality

One of the most contentious issues Dr. Adams addressed was the 2016 Production Sharing Agreement with ExxonMobil. He provided a detailed breakdown that contradicts public messaging about how oil revenues are shared. “For every 100 barrels of oil that comes up, 75 barrels go towards the cost of operations and the cost of paying back those loans and capital costs. That leaves 25 barrels to split 50-50 between Guyana and Exxon’s subsidiary—meaning we get 12.5%, they get 12.5%. Add the 2% royalty, and we’re at 14.5%.” Dr. Adams called ExxonMobil’s claim that Guyana receives 52% “propaganda and a falsehood. It’s an impossibility for us to ever get 52%.”

The situation is potentially far worse than the 14.5% figure suggests. The 75% allocated for costs is a ceiling, not a fixed amount. If actual costs exceed 75%, the difference carries over to subsequent months, accumulating indefinitely. “Let’s say it’s really 90% instead of 75%,” Dr. Adams explained. “That 15 extra goes over into the next month and the next month and the next month. That’s why I bet anybody we will never, throughout the life of this project, be able to get rid of these capital costs.” He compared it to credit card debt: “Every month you’re charging $1,000, but you’re only paying $100. That is one of the big elephants in the room that people are not paying attention to—that carry-over cost.”

With capital costs for the six current projects exceeding $60 billion and heading toward $100 billion, Guyanese citizens have no way to verify these calculations because quarterly financial reports are not published. When asked why these reports aren’t available, Dr. Adams recounted the Vice President’s response: “He said that the people of Guyana will not understand those reports, which is very insulting. He said it’s basically above our heads.” In contrast, U.S. government contracts require detailed amortization schedules, similar to mortgage statements, showing exactly when capital costs will be fully recovered.

Environmental Risks and Liability

Dr. Adams dedicated significant attention to liability coverage for oil spills, describing it as perhaps the most alarming governance failure. When Liza Phase 1 was approved before his arrival, the permit allowed ExxonMobil Guyana Limited, a subsidiary, to be “self-insured.” Dr. Adams questioned this arrangement: “Who is self-insured? It’s not Exxon. It’s Exxon’s subsidiary, which is EEPGL at the time. Who pays for an oil spill? They said, ‘Well, we’re already self-insured.’ I said, ‘Self-insurance? So where are your assets?’ Because this is a new company. They had not produced a barrel of oil, so they had no assets.”

The stakes are enormous. Dr. Adams noted that the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico cost British Petroleum over $65 billion^[5], with some estimates reaching $145 billion when including all direct and indirect costs^[6], in cleanup and compensation. “No insurance company will guarantee you for that kind of money,” he explained. “Which is what British Petroleum had to cover as the company. So I said, don’t bring me insurance. Even if you get $1 billion in insurance, I don’t care. What the language has to say is that Exxon, the parent company, has to cover all of the liability coverage above that insurance.”

The Natural Resource Fund Crisis

The Norway Model: Patience as Strategy

Dr. Adams expressed strong reservations about establishing the Natural Resource Fund at such an early stage of Guyana’s oil development. He drew a compelling comparison to Norway, often cited as the gold standard for sovereign wealth fund management. Norway discovered oil in 1969 but did not establish its sovereign wealth fund until 1990, twenty-one years later. The first deposit into the fund was made in 1996, twenty-seven years after the initial discovery. Norway did not make its first withdrawal until 2016^[7], a full forty-seven years after discovering oil. During those intervening decades, Norway invested oil revenues in education, healthcare, infrastructure, and social programs, building a foundation of prosperity before setting aside funds for future generations. Today, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund holds over $1.9 trillion^[8].

“Before that 27 years when they started putting money into the fund, they took care of the basic needs of the country,” Dr. Adams explained. “They took care of poverty, infrastructure, essential services before they started putting money in the fund.” According to a recent Inter-American Development Bank report, over 58% of Guyana’s population lives in poverty^[9]. Yet the government has withdrawn $1.8 billion from the NRF in 2025 alone, nearly 50% of the fund’s $3.64 billion balance. Norway’s fund allows withdrawals of no more than 3% annually^[10], ensuring that the principal grows over time and remains available for future generations. Guyana has no such limit.

The Urgency of Reform

Guyana stands at a crossroads between two starkly different futures. One path leads to the fate of Nigeria and Venezuela, nations that allowed corruption, mismanagement, and short-term thinking to transform resource wealth into a curse. The other path leads to the example of Norway, a nation that built enduring prosperity by investing in its people, maintaining fiscal discipline, and ensuring that oil revenues served the long-term interests of all citizens.

When today’s three-year-olds reach adulthood in 2040, what will they say about the decisions made in 2025? Will they inherit a prosperous, well-governed nation with world-class infrastructure, education, and healthcare? Or will they inherit a depleted fund, degraded environment, and a cautionary tale of squandered opportunity? The answer depends on whether Guyana’s leaders have the courage to prioritize national interests over political expediency, to build strong institutions over personal power, to invest in people over short-term consumption, to embrace transparency over convenient opacity, and to choose long-term vision over immediate gratification.

With oil production reaching 900,000 barrels per day, the Natural Resource Fund standing at $3.64 billion, and total 2025 oil revenues exceeding $2.2 billion, the scale of the opportunity is immense. Guyana ranks as the 18th largest oil reserve holder globally with more than twice Mexico’s reserves. The nation possesses abundant freshwater, favorable weather, and a small population with a median age of 26.2 years^[11], meaning half the population is under this age. But as Dr. Adams reminded us throughout the webinar, having the opportunity is not enough. What matters is what we do with that opportunity, and right now, the evidence suggests we are not doing nearly enough to protect it for those who will inherit the consequences of today’s choices.

About the Webinar

This report is based on the December 17, 2025 webinar “Transforming Guyana: New Voices, New Visions” presented by the Guyana Business Journal, hosted by Dr. Terrence Blackman, Professor and Chair of the Department of Mathematics at Medgar Evers College, CUNY, and Founder and Publisher of the Guyana Business Journal. Dr. Vincent Adams served as Executive Director of Guyana’s Environmental Protection Agency from 2018 to 2020 and spent 30 years at the United States Department of Energy. The conversation is available on YouTube and Facebook.

1. ExxonMobil Guyana Limited. (November 12, 2025). “Daily oil production hits 900,000 barrels in Guyana’s Stabroek block.” Retrieved from https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/locations/guyana/news-releases/11122025-daily-oil-production-hits-900000-barrels-in-guyanas-stabroek-block ↑
2. Guyana Business Journal. (December 2025). “From Prospect to Petrostate: Charting Guyana’s Decade of Oil.” Retrieved from https://guyanabusinessjournal.com/2025/12/from-prospect-to-petrostate-charting-guyanas-decade-of-oil/ ↑
3. As stated by Dr. Vincent Adams during the December 17, 2025 webinar. Dr. Adams clarified: “It wasn’t 2020 to 2021, it was from 2018 to 2020 when I was at the EPA.” ↑
4. Worldometer. (December 2025). “Guyana Population (2025).” Retrieved from https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/guyana-population/ (Population estimated at 835,986-838,180 as of mid-2025) ↑
5. BP Press Releases and Wikipedia. (2018). “Deepwater Horizon oil spill.” As of 2018, cleanup costs, charges and penalties had cost BP more than $65 billion. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill ↑
6. Chang, M. et al. (2018). “Ultimate Costs of the Disaster: Seven Years After the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.” Research paper documenting ultimate cost to BP of $144.89 billion when including hidden costs and indirect impacts not reported in BP’s income statement. ↑
7. Centre for Public Impact. (September 25, 2024). “The Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG) in Norway.” Retrieved from https://www.centreforpublicimpact.org/case-study/government-pension-fund-global-gpfg-norway ↑
8. Government Pension Fund of Norway – Wikipedia. (December 2025). As of June 2025, Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global had over US$1.9 trillion in assets. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Norway ↑
9. Inter-American Development Bank. (November 2024). “Ten Findings about Poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean.” The report estimates that 58% of Guyanese are living in poverty (earning less than US$6.85 per day), and 32% are in extreme poverty (earning less than US$3.65 per day). ↑
10. Pathfinders. (April 22, 2024). “Sovereign Wealth Fund: Norway.” Retrieved from https://www.sdg16.plus/policies/sovereign-wealth-fund-norway/ (Norway’s sovereign wealth fund limits withdrawals to 3 percent annually) ↑
11. Worldometer. (December 2025). “Guyana Demographics 2025.” The median age in Guyana is 26.2 years (2025). Retrieved from https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/guyana-demographics/ ↑

📢 Please support the Guyana Business Journal & Magazine today

Guyana Business Journal
Website: https://guyanabusinessjournal.com
Mission: Fostering critical dialogue and thought leadership that contribute to securing an open, prosperous, and inclusive Guyana

Editor’s Note

📢 Please support the Guyana Business Journal & Magazine today

The Guyana Business Journal is committed to delivering thoughtful, data-driven insights on the most critical issues shaping Guyana’s future—from oil and gas to climate change, governance, and development. We invite you to support us if you value and believe in the importance of independent Guyanese-led analysis. Your contributions help us sustain rigorous research, expand access, and amplify the voices of informed individuals across the Caribbean and the diaspora.

The Guyana Business Journal Editorial Board welcomes reflections and submissions at terrence.blackman@guyanabusinessjournal.com.

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Guyana’s ambitious gas-to-energy project, a cornerstone of the government’s strategy to slash electricity costs and secure the nation’s energy future, is in a critical phase of accelerated development. Following a series of delays, contractors are now working 24/7 shifts to meet the revised mid-2026 completion date [1, 2]. But the project’s current urgency is the latest chapter in a complex story that began not in 2021, but years earlier, with initial studies and site selection debates that paint a fuller picture of its evolution.

The journey to the Wales Development Zone began offshore, deep beneath the Atlantic. In May 2015, ExxonMobil announced its landmark Liza-1 oil discovery in the vast Stabroek Block, a 6.6-million-acre expanse that would soon prove to be one of the world’s most significant oil and gas finds [6, 7]. This discovery, the first of over 50 to date, unlocked a recoverable resource base now estimated at over 11 billion barrels of oil equivalent and catalyzed an unprecedented economic boom for Guyana [8]. As oil production began in December 2019, the associated natural gas, previously flared or reinjected, presented a monumental opportunity to address one of Guyana’s most persistent domestic challenges: expensive and unreliable electricity [7].

As early as 2017, the government began formally exploring this opportunity. A desk study commissioned in April 2017 confirmed the feasibility of bringing 30-50 million cubic feet of natural gas per day to shore, enough to supply nearly 70% of the nation’s energy demand. This led to a comprehensive site selection process, with a working group comprising various ministries and agencies initially identifying ten potential state-owned land parcels.

The primary focus was on locations along the East Coast of Demerara, with sites like Woodlands and Clonbrook emerging as front-runners due to their favorable characteristics. Interestingly, the now-selected West Bank Demerara location was not part of the original consideration. It was only in October 2017 that a Ministry of Finance representative on the working group proposed a site at Vreed-en-Hoop. Subsequent pre-screening and field assessments conducted through late 2017 and early 2018, however, concluded that the East Coast Demerara locations, particularly Woodlands, offered fewer constraints and lower costs compared to Vreed-en-Hoop.

Despite this, the project was put on hold in March 2018, when the Ministry of Public Infrastructure was instructed to cease all work pending the establishment of the new Department of Energy, to which all oil and gas matters were transferred in August 2018. Had the project proceeded on its original 2018 timeline, which included 18-24 months of further in-depth studies, it was anticipated to have been completed by late 2021 or early 2022—representing a potential four-to-five-year advancement over the current schedule.

The project was revived in 2021 under the new PPP/C administration, and this time, the focus shifted decisively to the West Bank of Demerara. Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo explained that the government selected Wales based on analyses inherited from the previous administration, determining its suitability against flooding risks, the high population density of other sites, and its substantial expansion potential for an industrial zone [12, 13]. The former Wales Sugar Estate site, shuttered in 2016, offered a large, contiguous land mass where industrial facilities could be located away from residential areas—a key consideration for environmental safety [11].

This new direction culminated in the December 2022 signing of a US$759 million contract with a consortium of the Texas-based Lindsayca and Puerto Rico-based CH4 Systems to engineer and construct the 300 MW combined-cycle power plant and an associated Natural Gas Liquids (NGL) facility at Wales [10]. However, the project soon encountered significant soil challenges. After construction began, geotechnical analysis revealed that the Wales site had unstable coastal clay with a rare sand mixture—what contractors described as land “not fit for construction” that required extensive stabilization before the heavy gas processing equipment could be safely installed [3].

The stabilization work required 1.65 million cubic meters of sand, 160,000 cubic meters of loam, and 25,000 cubic meters of crusher run, using cutting-edge technology from the world-renowned firm Fugro [14]. This essential preparatory work, which took 14 months and cost over US$100 million, became a key factor in the CH4 partnership dissolving in 2025 following disputes over the additional costs, leaving Lindsayca to move forward as the sole main contractor [3, 11]. The dissolution is currently subject to arbitration proceedings before the Washington DC-based International Chamber of Commerce.

Despite these setbacks, the project is now advancing with renewed determination. As of mid-October 2025, the overall project was reported to be 68.3% complete, with engineering at 89% and procurement at over 90% [3]. The offshore pipeline component, managed by ExxonMobil, is complete and ready to deliver gas [1]. Onshore, a 24/7 work schedule is in effect, and contractors have committed to extended hours to meet the revised mid-2026 deadline [1, 2].

The strategic importance of this project cannot be overstated. Guyana currently grapples with electricity costs approaching US$0.32 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), among the highest in the region, and relies on expensive, temporary powerships to meet demand [5]. The gas-to-energy project is projected to slash that cost to between US$0.08 and US$0.10 per kWh, providing an estimated US$200 million in annual savings and unlocking vast potential for industrial and manufacturing growth [3, 5].

From early studies favoring a different location to a multi-year pause and a challenging restart marked by unforeseen soil complications, the gas-to-energy project’s history is one of shifting priorities and persistent obstacles. Now, as construction accelerates at Wales, the government and its partners are in a determined race against time to overcome past delays and deliver on a promise that holds the key to a new era of economic prosperity and energy security for the nation.

References

[1] News Room Guyana. (2025, December 8). Work hours extended to keep flagship gas-to-energy project on track for 2026. https://newsroom.gy/2025/12/08/work-hours-extended-to-keep-flagship-gas-to-energy-project-on-track-for-2026/

[2] Department of Public Information. (2025, October 11). 24/7 work schedule now in effect for Wales Gas-to-Energy project. https://dpi.gov.gy/24-7-work-schedule-now-in-effect-for-wales-gas-to-energy-project/

[3] Demerara Waves. (2025, October 15). Wales gas-to-energy power plant 68 percent complete after 14-month delay. https://demerarawaves.com/2025/10/15/wales-gas-to-energy-power-plant-is-68-3-percent-complete-after-14-month-delay-due-to-soil-stabilisation/

[4] Guyana Business Journal. (2023, November 26). Guyana’s Gas to Energy Project and its Implications. https://guyanabusinessjournal.com/2023/11/guyana-gas-to-power-implications/

[5] Guyana Business Journal. (2025, April 27). Guyana’s Energy Transition. https://guyanabusinessjournal.com/2025/04/guyanas-energy-transition/

[6] ExxonMobil. (n.d.). Guyana project overview. https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/locations/guyana/operations/guyana-project-overview

[7] Offshore Energy. (2019, December 23). ExxonMobil makes history in Guyana as Liza Destiny FPSO produces first oil. https://www.offshore-energy.biz/exxonmobil-makes-history-in-guyana-as-liza-destiny-fpso-produces-first-oil/

[8] Brazil Energy Insight. (2025, November 25). Stabroek Block reaches 51 discoveries as Liza’s breakthrough continues to shape Guyana’s oil future. https://brazilenergyinsight.com/2025/11/25/stabroek-block-reaches-51-discoveries-as-lizas-breakthrough-continues-to-shape-guyanas-oil-future/

[9]

[10] Kaieteur News. (2022, December 14). Govt. signs agreement to build US$759M Wales gas plant. https://kaieteurnewsonline.com/2022/12/14/govt-signs-agreement-to-build-us759m-wales-gas-plant/

[11] Stabroek News. (2025, July 2). Partners in gas to energy project to split up – sources. https://www.stabroeknews.com/2025/07/02/news/guyana/partners-in-gas-to-energy-project-to-split-up-sources/

[12] Demerara Waves. (2021, February 10). Jagdeo justifies Wales location for gas-to-energy project, associated industries. https://demerarawaves.com/2021/02/09/jagdeo-justifies-wales-location-for-gas-to-energy-project-associated-industries/

[13] Stabroek News. (2021, May 9). Environment impact for gas-to-shore project still to be done. https://www.stabroeknews.com/2021/05/09/news/guyana/environment-impact-for-gas-to-shore-project-still-to-be-done/

[14] Stabroek News. (2024, September 22). Stabilising Wales soil for gas project took huge amount of sand, loan. https://www.stabroeknews.com/2024/09/22/news/guyana/stabilising-wales-soil-for-gas-project-took-huge-amount-of-sand-loan/

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Guyana Business Journal
Website: https://guyanabusinessjournal.com
Mission: Fostering critical dialogue and thought leadership that contribute to securing an open, prosperous, and inclusive Guyana

Editor’s Note

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The Guyana Business Journal is committed to delivering thoughtful, data-driven insights on the most critical issues shaping Guyana’s future—from oil and gas to climate change, governance, and development. We invite you to support us if you value and believe in the importance of independent Guyanese-led analysis. Your contributions help us sustain rigorous research, expand access, and amplify the voices of informed individuals across the Caribbean and the diaspora.

The Guyana Business Journal Editorial Board welcomes reflections and submissions at terrence.blackman@guyanabusinessjournal.com.

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A comprehensive working paper from the Inter-American Development Bank has delivered a sobering assessment of poverty in Guyana, presenting findings that stand in stark contrast to the nation’s narrative of unprecedented economic growth. The November 2024 report, titled “Ten Findings about Poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean,” places Guyana among the top four countries in the region with the highest poverty rates, alongside Venezuela, Honduras, and Guatemala. The study reveals that more than half of Guyana’s population lives in poverty, with over thirty percent experiencing extreme poverty defined as living on less than USD 3.65 per day. This analysis examines the report’s Guyana-specific conclusions and explores their implications for the country’s economic trajectory, labor force development, consumer markets, and long-term competitiveness.

The most striking revelation from the IDB’s analysis is the classification of Guyana as a high-poverty nation despite experiencing the world’s fastest GDP growth rate. The report explicitly states that in Guyana, along with Venezuela, Honduras, and Guatemala, populations face conditions where “more than half of the population in poverty and more than 30 percent in extreme poverty.” This finding presents a fundamental paradox that demands attention from business leaders, investors, and policymakers alike. While oil revenues have transformed government budgets and attracted international investment, the benefits have yet to lift a substantial portion of the population out of poverty. For the business community, this signals a deeply stratified consumer market where a large segment of the populace has minimal purchasing power, fundamentally limiting the potential for broad-based market growth. The concentration of wealth in specific sectors and geographic areas creates an economy of extremes, where luxury developments coexist with widespread deprivation.

The implications extend beyond consumer spending. A large impoverished population suggests challenges in workforce productivity, health outcomes, and educational attainment that will affect the quality of human capital available to businesses in the coming decades. Companies planning long-term investments in Guyana must factor these realities into their strategic planning, particularly those dependent on a skilled, healthy workforce. The paradox of plenty—record growth coupled with persistent poverty—reveals that Guyana’s economic transformation has been highly selective, enriching some while leaving the majority behind.

The IDB report reveals that poverty in Guyana is not evenly distributed across the national landscape but is rather a distinctly rural phenomenon, and this geographic disparity is one of the most pronounced in the entire Latin America and Caribbean region. The report documents that “Guatemala, Guyana, and Paraguay all have more than two-thirds in rural areas” when describing where the extreme poor are located. This means that more than sixty-seven percent of Guyana’s extremely poor population resides in rural communities, far from the economic activity concentrated in Georgetown and along the coast. This concentration extends to moderate poverty as well. While most countries in the region have seen moderate poverty shift toward urban centers, Guyana stands as a notable exception. The report explicitly notes that “with the exceptions of Guatemala and Guyana, most countries in the region have around 50 percent or fewer of the moderate poor in rural areas.” This indicates that Guyana’s moderate poor are also disproportionately rural, creating a two-tiered poverty structure that is overwhelmingly concentrated outside urban centers.

This deep rural-urban divide presents both formidable challenges and significant opportunities for the business community. On the challenge side, it highlights substantial logistical and infrastructure hurdles in reaching over two-thirds of the nation’s most vulnerable citizens. Poor road networks, limited electricity access, and inadequate telecommunications infrastructure make service delivery expensive and complex. Traditional retail, banking, and service models designed for urban markets often fail in these contexts. However, this divide also points to a vast, underserved market representing hundreds of thousands of potential consumers. Businesses that can innovate in last-mile delivery, rural finance, mobile banking, and the provision of affordable goods and services could unlock significant long-term growth while contributing to poverty alleviation. The rural poor are not a charity case but a market opportunity for companies willing to adapt their business models. Success stories from other emerging markets demonstrate that serving low-income rural populations can be both profitable and scalable when approached with appropriate technology and distribution strategies.

The demographic breakdown provided by the IDB offers critical insights into the future of the nation’s human capital. The data from the 2021 Guyana Labor Force Survey shows that children aged zero to fifteen constitute thirty-five percent of members in extremely poor households, compared to twenty-eight percent in moderately poor households and just nineteen percent in non-poor households. This sixteen percentage point gap between extreme poor and non-poor households represents a massive concentration of children in poverty. In practical terms, this means that more than one-third of every extremely poor household consists of children who are growing up without adequate nutrition, healthcare, or educational resources. This concentration of children in poverty represents nothing less than a human capital crisis in the making. These children are the workforce of 2035 and 2040, the employees and entrepreneurs who will determine whether Guyana can sustain economic growth beyond the oil boom. Children growing up in extreme poverty face compounding disadvantages including malnutrition that impairs cognitive development, limited access to quality education, higher rates of childhood illness, and reduced opportunities for skill development. Research consistently shows that childhood poverty has long-lasting effects on adult productivity, earning potential, and health outcomes.

For businesses planning to operate in Guyana over the coming decades, this demographic reality presents a direct concern. Companies that will require skilled labor, technical expertise, or knowledge workers may find the domestic talent pool constrained by the educational and health deficits created by childhood poverty. This could force greater reliance on expensive expatriate labor or limit the sophistication of operations that can be conducted locally. The elderly population presents a contrasting picture. Older Guyanese aged sixty-five and above constitute only six percent of extremely poor households, compared to thirteen percent of moderately poor households and fourteen percent of non-poor households. This significant underrepresentation in extreme poverty suggests that pensions and social safety nets may be providing an effective floor for this demographic, preventing them from falling into the deepest deprivation. However, the near-doubling of elderly representation in the moderately poor category compared to the extreme poor indicates a level of vulnerability just above the most extreme deprivation, suggesting that many elderly Guyanese live on the edge of poverty.

The gender composition of poverty in Guyana shows relative parity, with women representing fifty-three percent of both extremely poor and moderately poor households, compared to fifty-one percent of non-poor households. While women are slightly overrepresented among the poor, the difference is minimal compared to many other countries where gender is a primary driver of poverty. This suggests that poverty in Guyana is driven more by geographic, economic, and structural factors than by gender-based discrimination in access to resources. Perhaps most surprisingly, migrants constitute only one percent of the population across all poverty categories in Guyana. This finding is significant because it indicates that migration is not a significant factor in Guyana’s poverty landscape, contrary to narratives in other parts of the world where immigration is often blamed for poverty or economic strain. The poverty challenge in Guyana is homegrown, not imported, and solutions must address domestic economic structures rather than migration policies.

A crucial and concerning aspect of the IDB report is its commentary on the quality and currency of Guyana’s poverty data. The analysis was based on the 2021 Guyana Labor Force Survey, not a more comprehensive household survey that would capture detailed information on consumption, assets, and living standards. Labor Force Surveys are designed primarily to measure employment and labor market participation, not to provide the depth of household economic data needed for sophisticated poverty analysis. More troubling still, the IDB notes that for its 2022 and 2023 estimates, “the value from 2021 was maintained for 2022 and 2023,” meaning the latest figures are extrapolations rather than actual measurements. In other words, the most recent poverty data for Guyana is now three years old, and estimates for subsequent years are simply assumptions that conditions remained unchanged. This is particularly problematic given the rapid economic transformation Guyana has experienced since 2021, with oil production ramping up and major infrastructure investments underway.

The report also highlights a significant discrepancy in data sources between international institutions. While the IDB uses the 2021 Labor Force Survey, the World Bank relies on the outdated 1998 Guyana Living Standards Measurement Survey for its poverty estimates. This twenty-three-year gap in the World Bank’s data source renders their estimates essentially meaningless for current policy or business decisions, yet these figures continue to circulate in international databases and reports. This data deficit creates substantial uncertainty and risk for both public policy and private investment. For businesses, a lack of reliable, up-to-date data on household income, consumption patterns, and living standards hampers market analysis, risk assessment, and strategic planning. Companies cannot accurately size markets, identify growth opportunities, or assess the purchasing power of different demographic segments without current, reliable data. Investors face similar challenges in evaluating the social and economic risks associated with projects. For policymakers, the absence of current data makes it nearly impossible to assess whether government programs are working, whether poverty is increasing or decreasing, or where interventions are most needed. The government is essentially making multi-billion dollar spending decisions based on data that predates the oil economy. This is analogous to navigating a ship through treacherous waters with a three-year-old map; both government and the private sector are flying blind at a critical juncture in the nation’s development.

Understanding Guyana’s poverty situation requires placing it in regional context. The IDB study analyzed eighteen countries representing ninety-seven percent of the Latin America and Caribbean population, providing robust comparative benchmarks. Guyana’s poverty profile differs markedly from regional averages in several key dimensions. While the regional average shows fifty percent of extreme poor living in urban areas, Guyana’s extreme poor are overwhelmingly rural at over sixty-seven percent. This makes Guyana’s poverty geography more similar to Paraguay and Bolivia than to regional powerhouses like Brazil or Mexico, where poverty has increasingly become an urban phenomenon. The rural concentration of poverty in Guyana is more extreme than in most of Latin America, suggesting that the country’s development pattern has left rural areas particularly far behind. Guyana’s overall poverty rate of over fifty percent is substantially higher than the regional average of thirty percent, while its extreme poverty rate of over thirty percent dwarfs the regional average of twelve percent. These gaps place Guyana firmly in the high-poverty category alongside countries facing severe economic or political crises. The comparison is particularly striking given Guyana’s recent economic growth, which far exceeds that of regional peers.

The IDB’s findings carry significant implications for business strategy in Guyana across multiple dimensions. First, the consumer market is fundamentally constrained by widespread poverty. While there is certainly a growing affluent segment benefiting from oil wealth, the mass market remains characterized by low purchasing power. Businesses focused on middle-class or premium segments will find their addressable market limited to a small percentage of the population, primarily in urban areas. Companies seeking scale will need to develop products, services, and price points appropriate for low-income consumers. Second, the rural concentration of poverty creates both market segmentation and operational challenges. Rural markets require different distribution strategies, product formulations, and pricing models than urban markets. The infrastructure deficits in rural areas increase the cost of service delivery, while lower purchasing power constrains revenue potential. However, companies that solve these challenges can access a large, underserved market with limited competition. Third, the concentration of children in poverty signals future human capital constraints. Businesses planning long-term operations in Guyana should anticipate challenges in recruiting skilled workers domestically and may need to invest in training and education programs to develop the workforce they require. Companies in sectors requiring technical skills, digital literacy, or advanced education may face particular constraints. Fourth, the data deficit creates uncertainty that should be factored into risk assessments and investment decisions. Without reliable current data, businesses cannot accurately forecast market size, growth trajectories, or consumer behavior. This uncertainty premium should be reflected in required returns and investment timelines.

The IDB’s report serves as a critical wake-up call for Guyana at a pivotal moment in its history. It underscores that the nation’s unprecedented oil wealth is not yet translating into widespread prosperity, and the deep-seated, rural, and youth-centric nature of poverty presents a formidable challenge to long-term sustainable development. The concentration of economic benefits in narrow sectors and geographic areas threatens to create a permanently divided society with profound implications for social cohesion, political stability, and economic sustainability. For the business community, the report is simultaneously a warning and an opportunity. It reveals the limitations of the current consumer market and the constraints on human capital development, but it also highlights the immense potential in developing business models that are inclusive and cater to the needs of the rural and urban poor. The most successful companies in Guyana over the coming decades may well be those that figure out how to profitably serve the mass market rather than just the elite.

Addressing the data deficit must be an urgent priority for both government and the private sector. Investing in regular, comprehensive household surveys is not a luxury but a necessity for evidence-based policymaking and informed business strategy. The government should commit to conducting a full household income and expenditure survey at least every three years, with results made publicly available to enable both policy analysis and market research. Without accurate data, both government and the private sector are navigating blind through one of the most consequential periods in the nation’s history. Ultimately, tackling poverty is not just a moral imperative but an economic necessity. A healthier, better-educated, and more financially secure populace will create the robust workforce and vibrant consumer market that are essential for Guyana to build a resilient and prosperous economy beyond oil. The current trajectory, with growth concentrated in extractive industries and urban areas while rural populations remain mired in poverty, is neither sustainable nor desirable. Business leaders, policymakers, and civil society must work together to ensure that economic transformation translates into broad-based prosperity, or risk squandering a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform the nation’s development trajectory.

References

[1] Chang, J., Evans, D. K., & Rivas Herrera, C. (2024). Ten Findings about Poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean. Inter-American Development Bank. Working Paper No. IDB-WP-01644. November 2024.

About this Analysis: This article is based on data from the Inter-American Development Bank’s November 2024 working paper analyzing poverty across 18 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Guyana-specific data is drawn from the 2021 Guyana Labor Force Survey and represents the most recent comprehensive poverty assessment available from international development institutions.

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Guyana Business Journal
Website: https://guyanabusinessjournal.com
Mission: Fostering critical dialogue and thought leadership that contribute to securing an open, prosperous, and inclusive Guyana

Editor’s Note

📢 Please support the Guyana Business Journal & Magazine today

The Guyana Business Journal is committed to delivering thoughtful, data-driven insights on the most critical issues shaping Guyana’s future—from oil and gas to climate change, governance, and development. We invite you to support us if you value and believe in the importance of independent Guyanese-led analysis. Your contributions help us sustain rigorous research, expand access, and amplify the voices of informed individuals across the Caribbean and the diaspora.

The Guyana Business Journal Editorial Board welcomes reflections and submissions at terrence.blackman@guyanabusinessjournal.com.

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In November 2025, another substantial deposit—US$195.4 million—flowed into Guyana’s Natural Resource Fund (NRF), bringing the sovereign wealth fund’s balance to US$3.64 billion. Of this deposit, US$191.6 million came from crude oil sales, while a historic US$3.75 million marked the first signing bonus to enter the fund, originating from the shallow water Block S4 agreement [1]. These figures represent more than accounting entries; they are the latest chapter in a national transformation that began less than a decade ago. In 2015, Guyana was a nation defined by vast rainforests and economic struggle. Today, it stands as the world’s fastest-growing economy over the past three years, a nascent petrostate navigating the immense promise and documented perils of sudden resource wealth.

Before the discovery that would fundamentally alter its trajectory, Guyana confronted substantial development challenges. The nation was among the poorest in the Western Hemisphere, with an economy largely dependent on agriculture, fishing, and mining. World Bank estimates suggested that 48% of the population lived on less than $5.50 per day as of 2019—though this figure has been contested by government officials, and critically, no updated poverty survey has been conducted since oil production began [2, 3]. The 2019 data, drawn from household surveys predating the oil boom, provides our last comprehensive snapshot of pre-transformation conditions but cannot capture how petroleum revenues have affected living standards. The economy showed modest growth but lacked the dynamism to lift a significant portion of its population from hardship. Emigration rates were among the world’s highest, with more than 55% of citizens residing abroad and over 80% of those with tertiary education having left the country. This brain drain compounded development challenges, limiting institutional capacity and concentrating skilled workers overseas.

ExxonMobil’s announcement in May 2015 of a significant oil discovery in the Stabroek Block, approximately 120 miles offshore, was therefore not just a news headline but a seismic shock that promised to rewrite the country’s future [4]. The Liza-1 well proved the first of what would become over 30 discoveries, unlocking more than 11 billion barrels of recoverable oil and gas resources—one of the highest per capita levels globally [5]. For a nation of approximately 830,000 people, this represented an extraordinary concentration of petroleum wealth. Yet the discovery came with a significant caveat. The 2016 Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) negotiated with ExxonMobil—signed before the full scale of discoveries was known—grants the government only a 2% royalty and 50% of profit oil after cost recovery. These terms are widely considered among the most favorable to oil companies globally; by comparison, Trinidad receives a 12.5% royalty while Brazil commands 15%. The unfavorable contract structure has become a source of continuing debate about whether Guyana is receiving fair value for its resources.

The years between discovery and first oil saw intensive preparation. Recognizing both the transformative potential and associated risks, the government moved to establish a framework for managing the expected windfall. This led to the creation of the Natural Resource Fund in 2019, a sovereign wealth fund designed to manage petroleum revenues with the aim of ensuring intergenerational equity and mitigating the boom-and-bust cycles that have plagued other resource-rich nations [6]. The original NRF Act of 2019 was replaced by the NRF Act of 2021, which the current administration argues has strengthened transparency and accountability [7]. The revised framework established withdrawal limits (capped at the lesser of the maximum sustainable amount as determined by the Macroeconomic Committee, or when annual revenues exceed $5 billion, 10% of those revenues), requires parliamentary approval for expenditures, and mandates oversight through multiple committees including a nine-member Public Accountability and Oversight Committee. The Bank of Guyana serves as operational manager, publishing monthly and quarterly performance reports.

On December 20, 2019, Guyana officially joined the ranks of oil-producing nations as the Liza Destiny FPSO (Floating Production, Storage, and Offloading) vessel began drawing first oil from Liza Phase 1 [8]. The pace of development since has been extraordinary. Production surged from an initial 75,000 barrels per day (bpd) in early 2020 to 900,000 bpd by November 2024 [1, 9]—a twelve-fold increase in under five years. By December 2024, Guyana had become the third-largest per capita petroleum producer globally. This exponential growth was fueled by a succession of major projects coming online, each a testament to the scale of offshore operations:

The production timeline continues its aggressive expansion. The Uaru and Whiptail projects are slated to come online by 2027, pushing total production capacity from currently sanctioned projects toward 1.3 million bpd [5]. Further developments including Hammerhead and Longtail are already in planning stages, potentially increasing capacity further. This trajectory will establish Guyana as a dominant force in regional energy production, second only to Brazil.

The economic impact has been staggering. In 2022, Guyana’s GDP grew by 62.3%, the highest in the world [5]. The International Monetary Fund confirms this represented the highest real GDP growth rate globally, with the economy tripling in size since oil extraction began. The IMF projects continued double-digit growth for the foreseeable future, with Guyana remaining the only country in the Americas forecast for such expansion through 2027 [10]. Private consumption increased dramatically from 8% of GDP in 2015 to 23% of GDP in 2024, with household spending rising from $71 billion annually to $1.5 trillion annually—a twenty-fold increase that signals stronger purchasing power. Government investment in infrastructure has been substantial, with capital expenditures exceeding 12% of GDP as oil revenues fund new hospitals, schools, roads, and bridges. The unemployment rate declined from 12.4% in 2022 to 10.3% in 2023, though this remains elevated and concentrated in rural areas.

Yet measuring the distribution of this wealth proves challenging. The last comprehensive poverty survey was conducted in 2019, before oil production began. Government officials have contested the 48% poverty figure from that survey, with Finance Minister Dr. Ashni Singh estimating current poverty below 20% based on wage increases and consumption data. However, without updated survey data, the actual poverty rate remains uncertain. What is clear is that remittances from diaspora Guyanese increased 44% from 2019 to 2022—suggesting that even as GDP soars, many households continue depending on income from relatives abroad. This paradox of record GDP growth alongside persistent diaspora dependence raises questions about how broadly prosperity has spread beyond the capital and coastal areas.

Guyana’s oil wealth comes with documented risks. The ‘resource curse’—observed in nations from Nigeria to Venezuela—operates through several mechanisms. Dutch Disease occurs when foreign exchange inflows appreciate currency and undermine non-oil exports, making agriculture and manufacturing less competitive. Rent-seeking behavior crowds out productive entrepreneurship as economic actors focus on capturing resource revenues rather than creating value. Institutions weaken as resource revenues reduce government accountability to taxpayers. Volatile budgets tied to commodity price swings create boom-bust cycles that destabilize planning and investment. These are not theoretical concerns but empirically documented patterns that have undermined development in resource-rich nations across continents.

Guyana exhibits particular vulnerabilities beyond the unfavorable PSA terms. The nation’s political system has been historically divided along ethnic lines between the Indo-Guyanese-supported People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) and the Afro-Guyanese-backed APNU+AFC coalition. This pattern, described by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter as a ‘winner-takes-all’ political culture, creates a precarious foundation for managing shared resource wealth. When political competition follows ethnic rather than policy lines, equitable distribution becomes more challenging. The risk is that oil revenues entrench the incumbent party through patronage networks tied to specific communities, rather than benefiting the nation broadly. This concern is amplified by the fact that resource rents create opportunities for politically directed spending that may prioritize loyal constituencies over development needs.

Early warning signs of resource curse dynamics exist. The non-oil economy, while growing at a healthy 11-13% annually, faces potential Dutch Disease symptoms as construction and services boom while traditional sectors face pressure. Agriculture, historically a mainstay, must now compete with high wages in oil-adjacent industries and construction. Rice farmers, sugar workers, and fishermen find it increasingly difficult to attract and retain labor when construction sites and service industries offer substantially higher pay. The real exchange rate has begun appreciating, though inflation remains moderate at 3-4%—suggesting monetary authorities have successfully managed demand pressures thus far. However, the appreciation trend threatens export competitiveness in precisely the sectors that should provide post-oil economic foundations.

Institutional capacity constraints present another challenge. Guyana must rapidly scale administrative capabilities to manage unprecedented investment programs while maintaining transparency and efficiency. The brain drain of previous decades means the skilled workforce needed for effective governance and project management is limited. Public sector salaries, though improved, still cannot compete with private sector opportunities created by the oil boom, making it difficult to staff agencies with qualified personnel. The speed at which multi-billion dollar projects must be designed, procured, and implemented strains institutional systems built for a much smaller scale of activity. Whether current institutions can effectively deploy billions in infrastructure spending without waste or corruption remains a central question. The early evidence is mixed: some projects have proceeded efficiently while others have faced delays, cost overruns, or contracting controversies.

The government has implemented several safeguards, though their effectiveness faces ongoing scrutiny. The NRF Act 2021 established withdrawal limits, requires parliamentary approval for expenditures, and mandates oversight through multiple committees. The government joined the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and publishes monthly NRF performance reports. A nine-member Public Accountability and Oversight Committee provides non-governmental oversight, replacing the unwieldy 22-member committee proposed in the original 2019 Act. These mechanisms represent genuine attempts to institutionalize accountability, and Guyana’s transparency reporting exceeds that of many established oil producers. Yet the ultimate test is not frameworks on paper but implementation under pressure. As revenues grow and political stakes increase, whether these mechanisms can withstand attempts at capture or circumvention will determine their value.

President Irfaan Ali has argued that ‘there is no resource curse; the resource is a blessing. It’s a management curse, and we are doing everything to avoid that’ [11]. The government’s strategy centers on using oil revenues for massive infrastructure investment intended to diversify the economy beyond petroleum dependence. Major initiatives include the planned Silica City smart city, designed as a technology and innovation hub to attract investment and skilled workers. Whether this ambitious project can successfully catalyze a knowledge economy remains to be seen, as similar mega-projects in other resource-rich nations have produced mixed results. The government is also pursuing massive road and bridge construction connecting previously isolated regions, particularly in the interior where Indigenous communities reside. This infrastructure could enable economic integration but also raises environmental concerns about rainforest access and whether development benefits will actually reach these communities or primarily serve extractive industries.

Expansion of healthcare and education facilities addresses long-standing development gaps. Hospital construction and school building have accelerated, though questions remain about staffing these facilities given workforce limitations. The government is simultaneously pursuing energy sector development to lower costs and improve reliability, potentially through gas-to-energy projects that would utilize associated gas from oil fields. If successful, this could reduce electricity costs dramatically, benefiting both households and industries. However, the gas-to-energy project has faced delays and technical complexities, and critics question whether the substantial investment might lock Guyana into fossil fuel dependence when renewable alternatives could be pursued instead.

Critics question whether current institutional capacity can manage this investment scale effectively, whether political competition will enable the fiscal discipline required for sustainable development, and whether benefits will reach rural and Indigenous communities equitably. Transparency International and other watchdog organizations have raised concerns about corruption risks, particularly in procurement and contract awards. The concentration of decision-making authority and the speed of expenditure create opportunities for irregularities. Opposition parties have alleged favoritism in contract awards, though proving such claims definitively is difficult. The effectiveness of oversight mechanisms remains to be fully tested, as the real challenges emerge not during the initial design phase but during implementation when political pressures and opportunities for rent-seeking intensify.

Guyana faces a fundamental tension between oil development and environmental commitments. The nation has positioned itself as a climate leader through its Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS), earning substantial forest carbon credits by maintaining its vast rainforest cover. These carbon payments—which increased from $380 million to over $500 million between 2019 and 2022—represent recognition of Guyana’s role as a carbon sink. The country’s rainforests store massive quantities of carbon that, if released through deforestation, would significantly impact global climate change. Yet Guyana is simultaneously pursuing rapid expansion of offshore oil production, which contributes to global carbon emissions when refined and consumed. This contradiction—monetizing both carbon storage and carbon extraction—places Guyana in a unique and morally complex position.

Government officials argue that developing nations should not bear disproportionate burdens for climate mitigation when they contributed minimally to historical emissions. They contend that oil revenues can fund renewable energy transition and climate adaptation for a low-lying coastal nation vulnerable to sea level rise. There is logic to this argument: Guyana’s total emissions from oil extraction and domestic consumption remain tiny compared to major emitters, and the country faces real climate risks regardless of its own actions. Yet the philosophical challenge remains—can a nation credibly claim climate leadership while expanding fossil fuel production? International climate advocates have criticized this stance, arguing that all new oil development is incompatible with Paris Agreement targets regardless of per capita or historical responsibility arguments.

Environmental risks from offshore drilling include potential oil spills, for which Guyana’s response capacity remains limited. The lack of a comprehensive spill response framework and reliance on ExxonMobil’s own capabilities has drawn criticism from environmental organizations. A major spill in the Stabroek Block could devastate coastal ecosystems and fishing communities, with Guyana lacking the equipment and expertise to respond independently. Additionally, infrastructure development funded by oil revenues—particularly roads penetrating previously inaccessible rainforest areas—could facilitate deforestation despite forest protection policies. The government maintains that road construction serves development purposes, connecting isolated communities to markets and services. Yet the historical pattern globally is that forest roads, whatever their stated purpose, enable logging, mining, and agricultural expansion that fragments ecosystems. Managing this tension requires vigilant enforcement that may exceed current institutional capacity.

Guyana’s oil transformation occurs against a backdrop of regional geopolitical tensions. Venezuela has long claimed the Essequibo region—representing approximately two-thirds of Guyana’s territory—where the offshore Stabroek Block discoveries are located. Though Venezuela has not directly claimed the oil fields, President Nicolás Maduro escalated the conflict in 2024 by calling for a national referendum to formally annex Essequibo, a move condemned internationally. The International Court of Justice, which took up the case in 2020, ruled it had jurisdiction but has not issued a final decision. This territorial dispute creates uncertainty for long-term oil development. ExxonMobil and its partners have proceeded with investments despite Venezuelan objections, betting that international law and Guyana’s established control will prevail. Yet the unresolved status introduces risk to what are multi-billion dollar projects requiring decades to fully develop.

Guyana has strengthened security cooperation with the United States and regional partners in response, including joint military exercises and enhanced coast guard capabilities. The U.S. has clear strategic interests in supporting Guyana both as a democratic ally and as an oil producer outside OPEC control. This security partnership provides Guyana with implicit protection but also draws the country into broader geopolitical dynamics. The situation requires careful navigation—Guyana needs security guarantees but must avoid unnecessarily provoking Venezuela or appearing as a proxy for external powers. Regional diplomatic efforts through CARICOM and other forums seek to de-escalate tensions, though Venezuela’s domestic political situation creates unpredictability.

Guyana’s emergence as an energy producer also reshapes Caribbean and Latin American dynamics. The nation is positioned to become the second-largest oil producer in the region after Brazil, surpassing traditional producers like Trinidad and Tobago. This creates both economic opportunities—Guyana could supply regional energy needs at competitive prices—and diplomatic complexities as it navigates relationships with CARICOM members while building closer ties with larger powers interested in its resources. Trinidad, which has been the Caribbean’s energy leader for decades, now faces competition from a neighbor with far larger reserves. This shift could enable beneficial regional energy integration or create tensions depending on how commercial relationships develop.

Guyana’s experience will shape how the region and the world understand whether small states can successfully navigate resource wealth. The outcome depends on choices being made now about governance, investment priorities, and inclusive development.

Guyana now navigates competing imperatives: maximizing petroleum revenue while building non-oil competitiveness, maintaining fiscal discipline while addressing development deficits, ensuring inclusive growth amid deep political divisions, and balancing environmental commitments against extraction. Several critical junctures will shape the trajectory. PSA renegotiation represents one such juncture—whether Guyana can successfully secure more favorable terms for future blocks, or even for existing discoveries, will significantly impact long-term revenues. The government has stated its intention to secure better terms, but ExxonMobil has invested billions based on current agreements, creating complex legal and commercial considerations. New discoveries could provide leverage for tougher negotiations, but the company might also slow development if terms become unfavorable compared to opportunities elsewhere.

Governance sustainability presents another critical test. Can Guyana maintain transparency and accountability as revenues grow? Future elections will determine whether oil wealth entrenches incumbents or whether democratic competition remains robust. Opposition parties have raised concerns about the PPP/C using resource revenues for patronage, while the government argues its investments benefit all citizens. The truth likely contains elements of both claims—large-scale infrastructure investment does create broad benefits, but the timing, location, and design of projects also reflect political considerations. The question is whether the balance tilts toward development or toward political advantage, and whether oversight mechanisms can constrain the latter.

Diversification success will determine whether investments in non-oil sectors create sustainable economic activity or merely represent construction booms that fade when oil revenues decline. The effectiveness of initiatives like Silica City, agriculture modernization, and tourism development will reveal if Guyana builds a truly diversified economy. History suggests this is the most difficult challenge—few resource-rich nations have successfully used petroleum revenues to build competitive non-oil sectors. The incentives work against it: oil wealth tends to appreciate currencies and inflate wages, making other tradable sectors uncompetitive. Breaking this pattern requires both exceptional institutional capacity and political will to prioritize long-term diversification over short-term consumption.

Equity and inclusion represent fundamental questions of justice. Whether benefits reach rural populations, Indigenous communities, and historically marginalized groups, or whether wealth concentrates in Georgetown and coastal areas, will determine if oil becomes a truly national asset or deepens existing inequalities. The lack of current poverty data makes monitoring distributional impacts challenging, but anecdotal evidence suggests uneven benefits. Urban areas see dramatic infrastructure improvements while some interior communities still lack basic services. Indigenous groups express concerns about whether consultation on projects affecting their territories is meaningful or perfunctory. These distributional questions are not merely economic but political—perceptions of unfairness could fuel social tensions that undermine stability.

How Guyana reconciles oil development with climate commitments and forest protection will shape both its environmental legacy and its standing in international climate negotiations. The country cannot credibly maintain climate leadership while rapidly expanding fossil fuel production without a clear transition strategy. This might involve committing to a production peak, dedicating specific revenue shares to renewable energy, or establishing concrete plans for post-oil economic development. Without such elements, Guyana risks being seen as opportunistically claiming climate credentials while maximizing fossil fuel extraction—a position that becomes less tenable as global pressure for emission reductions intensifies.

The journey from 2015 to today represents a remarkable ascent from an overlooked corner of South America to a central position on the global energy map. The Natural Resource Fund balance, swelling toward $4 billion, represents accumulated choices about savings, investment, and intergenerational equity. Production approaching 1 million barrels per day demonstrates technical capability and resource abundance. Yet these achievements represent only the foundation. The next decade will determine whether this becomes a narrative of successful development—petroleum revenues catalyzing broader prosperity, strengthening institutions, and enabling a post-oil transition—or another cautionary tale where resource wealth paradoxically impedes development.

The difference lies not in the oil itself but in the political, institutional, and social choices Guyanese make about how to manage it. International observers, development institutions, and other resource-rich nations watch closely. Guyana’s small size and compressed timeline create a natural experiment in resource management. Success would demonstrate that the resource curse is not inevitable—that with appropriate governance, small states can convert geological fortune into sustained prosperity. Failure would reinforce skepticism about whether any nation can navigate the political economy of resource wealth without succumbing to familiar pathologies of corruption, inequality, and institutional decay.

For Guyana’s citizens, the stakes are profoundly personal. This is not an abstract exercise in development economics but a lived experience of transformation, uncertainty, and possibility. The oil flowing from offshore wells will either fund their children’s education and healthcare, or enrich a narrow elite. Infrastructure investments will either connect isolated communities to opportunities, or serve primarily construction industry profits. Democratic institutions will either strengthen through transparency, or corrode through patronage. Environmental protections will either preserve the rainforest for future generations, or prove inadequate against development pressures. These outcomes remain undecided, shaped by ongoing contestation over how petroleum wealth is governed, invested, and distributed. The deposits flowing monthly into the Natural Resource Fund represent not foregone conclusions but accumulated choices—each one a small decision about what kind of nation Guyana will become.

References

[1] OilNOW. (2025, December 13). Guyana’s oil fund got US$195 million in signing bonus and oil sales for November. https://oilnow.gy/featured/guyanas-oil-fund-got-us195-million-in-signing-bonus-and-oil-sales-for-november/

[2] World Bank. (n.d.). The World Bank in Guyana. https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/guyana

[3] Borgen Project. (2017, September 17). Why is Guyana Poor? https://borgenproject.org/why-is-guyana-poor/

[4] ExxonMobil. (2015, May 20). ExxonMobil Announces Significant Oil Discovery Offshore Guyana. https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/news/news-releases/2015/0520_exxonmobil-announces-significant-oil-discovery-offshore-guyana

[5] U.S. Energy Information Administration. (2024, May 21). Guyana becomes key contributor to global crude oil supply growth. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=62103

[6] International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds. (n.d.). Natural Resource Fund. https://www.ifswf.org/members/natural-resource-fund

[7] Department of Public Information. (2025, June 21). Natural Resource Fund 101: What every Guyanese should know. https://dpi.gov.gy/natural-resource-fund-101-what-every-guyanese-should-know/

[8] ExxonMobil. (2019, December 20). ExxonMobil begins oil production in Guyana. https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/news/news-releases/2019/1220_exxonmobil-begins-oil-production-in-guyana

[9] ExxonMobil. (2025, November 12). Daily oil production hits 900,000 barrels in Guyana’s Stabroek Block. https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/locations/guyana/news-releases/11122025-daily-oil-production-hits-900000-barrels-in-guyanas-stabroek-block

[10] Tempo Networks. (2025, October 9). Guyana: The Only Country In The Americas Forecast For Double-Digit Growth Through 2027. https://www.temponetworks.com/2025/10/09/guyana-the-only-country-in-the-americas-forecast-for-double-digit-growth-through-2027/

[11] Arrioja, J. E. (2024, January 23). Can Guyana Beat the Resource Curse? Americas Quarterly. https://americasquarterly.org/article/can-guyana-beat-the-resource-curse/

📢 Please support the Guyana Business Journal & Magazine today

Guyana Business Journal
Website: https://guyanabusinessjournal.com
Mission: Fostering critical dialogue and thought leadership that contribute to securing an open, prosperous, and inclusive Guyana

Editor’s Note

📢 Please support the Guyana Business Journal & Magazine today

The Guyana Business Journal is committed to delivering thoughtful, data-driven insights on the most critical issues shaping Guyana’s future—from oil and gas to climate change, governance, and development. We invite you to support us if you value and believe in the importance of independent Guyanese-led analysis. Your contributions help us sustain rigorous research, expand access, and amplify the voices of informed individuals across the Caribbean and the diaspora.

The Guyana Business Journal Editorial Board welcomes reflections and submissions at terrence.blackman@guyanabusinessjournal.com.

📢 Please support the Guyana Business Journal & Magazine today

From Blackouts to Breakthroughs: Why Guyana Can Still Build a 100MW AI Future—If It’s Done Right

By

Kwasi Fraser, Son of Guyana

There are nights in Guyana when the power goes out without warning. The fan slows. Heat settles into the room. Mosquitoes sharpen their wings. A mother leans into the dark and strikes a match so her children can finish homework by candlelight. We know this scene because it remains a shared reality.

At dawn, Bourda Market comes alive. Vendors lift shutters, pack coolers with ice, and hope the power lasts long enough to keep chicken, fish, and food from spoiling in the heat. Electricity is not a luxury here; it is a matter of survival.

So when talk rises of a 100-megawatt AI data center—a cathedral of computation—people naturally ask: How can a nation of blackouts power a future built on light?

It is a fair question. But development has never been a gift delivered. Nations become what they choose to build, and sometimes courage arrives as planning, while hope arrives as engineering. Yes, Guyana carries the memory of failed megaprojects. Yes, trust must be earned, not assumed. But we must not confuse caution with paralysis. Present limitations cannot be allowed to imprison future possibilities. Guyana can build a 100MW AI campus—if it is approached with precision, transparency, and stamina, not with optimism dressed up as MOUs.

Progress must come in steps, not leaps. Before any shovel touches earth, something deeper must be acknowledged. The success of every data center rests on four pillars: power, water, fiber, and permission. Not government permission. Not investor permission. Permission from the people. Walter Rodney reminded us: you cannot develop a nation behind its back. You cannot make decisions in air-conditioned rooms while the community outside has no voice. Development without consent is extraction with new branding. A future built for the people must begin with the people.

The data center cannot rely on GPL’s fragile grid. It needs a dedicated natural-gas power plant with redundancy and islanding capacity, using excess associated gas. But we must think beyond today. Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) are the most serious long-term competitor to gas. Several U.S. designs are expected to go critical in 2026, with one projected to generate 1.5 GW on just 3 acres. So we must ask: Why invest US$10 billion to bring non-associated gas to shore for 1GW when, within five years, a reactor could deliver similar output with near-zero emissions? This is not anti-gas. It is pro-foresight. Gas may power early phases; SMR could anchor the future.

Water presents another challenge that technology has already solved. Guyana must adopt immersion and closed-loop cooling systems that reduce water consumption by over 90%. Technology cannot compete with households for clean water. Development must be phased: start at 10MW, prove reliability, expand to 25, to 50, then to 100. We climb; we do not vault. Critical to long-term viability is planning for GPU upgrade cycles—AI hardware refreshes every 24–36 months, and the business model must sustain itself, not wait for rescue.

Financing must shield citizens. PPPs, BOT agreements, and revenues from compute exports can fund development without burdening the treasury. If the public carries risk, the public must share reward. Above all, transparency cannot be negotiable. Contracts must be public, audits routine, uptime measurable, penalties real. Trust is built in daylight.

Why pursue this at all? Because this is not simply a building of servers. It is about sovereignty. It is about economic identity. It is Guyana deciding what future it wants to own rather than rent. Guyana has given the world not only minerals and timber, but minds—brilliant, resilient, world-shaping minds. For generations, its nurses, teachers, engineers, and dreamers have crossed oceans to build wealth for nations richer than their own. But history offers every country a turning point. The question now is whether Guyana’s sons and daughters must still leave to prosper, or whether home can become a place where talent grows, thrives, and returns.

Imagine exporting not raw materials nor human potential, but AI intelligence—value that weighs nothing, travels at the speed of light, and is born from Guyanese power, code, and creativity. Imagine Guyana exporting computation the way others export energy. Imagine universities training AI engineers alongside oilfield workers. Imagine CARICOM data processed in Georgetown. Imagine a sovereign GPU reserve for research and innovation.

Natural gas may carry us into the next chapter, but SMR could write the one after. When 1.5GW fits on three acres, Guyana must ask: Do we build the future through extraction or through evolution?

The AI campus should not be a monument. It should be a door—for the mother lighting a candle, for the vendor guarding a cooler of ice, for the child who deserves light in the socket and in the mind. Progress is not hope alone. It is engineering, accountability, and community participation. The lights flicker now. Our work is to build the day when they do not.

Guyana can rise into the digital era carefully, intelligently, and proudly—not by repeating history, but by refusing to repeat it. If it pursues the 100MW campus, let it be done on terms that strengthen the people. The future belongs to the nations that prepare, not those that pause.

Kwasi Fraser – Former Mayor of Purcellville, Virginia | Fiscal Conservative & Innovative Leader Committed to Smart Growth and Community Preservation

Guyana Business Journal
Website: https://guyanabusinessjournal.com
Mission: Fostering critical dialogue and thought leadership that contribute to securing an open, prosperous, and inclusive Guyana

Editor’s Note

📢 Please support the Guyana Business Journal & Magazine today

The Guyana Business Journal is committed to delivering thoughtful, data-driven insights on the most critical issues shaping Guyana’s future—from oil and gas to climate change, governance, and development. We invite you to support us if you value and believe in the importance of independent Guyanese-led analysis. Your contributions help us sustain rigorous research, expand access, and amplify the voices of informed individuals across the Caribbean and the diaspora.

The Guyana Business Journal Editorial Board welcomes reflections and submissions at terrence.blackman@guyanabusinessjournal.com.

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GEORGETOWN, GUYANA – In a landmark move for Guyana’s burgeoning oil and gas sector, the Government of Guyana has signed a Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) with Cybele Energy, a Ghanaian-owned oil and gas company, for the exploration of the shallow-water Block S7. The deal, formalized on December 9, 2025, at the Pegasus Hotel in Georgetown, marks several historic firsts for both Guyana and the international energy industry.

This agreement marks the second PSA signed under Guyana’s new, more stringent fiscal regime, introduced following the 2022 oil auction. The new terms include a 10% royalty rate, a 10% corporate tax, and a 65% cost recovery ceiling, with a 50/50 profit-oil split between the government and the contractor. This is a significant departure from the previous PSA model, particularly the controversial Stabroek Block agreement, which had been the subject of sustained public debate.

A New Era of Partnership and Diversity

The deal with Cybele Energy is particularly noteworthy as it introduces the first African-led operator to Guyana’s oil and gas landscape. Furthermore, Cybele Energy is the first woman-led exploration and production company to secure an oil block outside Africa. The company is led by its founder and CEO, Beatrice Mensah-Tayui, who hailed the agreement as “the beginning and dawn of a new era” for both the industry and for women in energy.

“Today, Guyana has made history,” Ms. Mensah-Tayui stated at the signing ceremony. “Guyana has taken a bold step in the advancement of women.” She also emphasized the ancestral ties between Ghana and Guyana, describing the deal as a symbol of unity between the two nations.

Minister of Natural Resources, Vickram Bharrat, echoed these sentiments, noting that the agreement is a testament to Guyana’s growing global influence. “It shows that our work…has been truly recognised around the world, so much so that it is attracting investments and interests globally and across continents,” he said.

The Details of the Deal

The agreement for Block S7 comes with a signing bonus of US$17 million, which is US$7 million above the minimum requirement for shallow-water blocks under the new fiscal regime. The block itself is located approximately 50 kilometers from ExxonMobil’s prolific Liza Phase 1 and 2 fields and is estimated to contain around 400 million barrels of recoverable oil.

Cybele Energy has committed to a robust exploration program, with a 3D seismic survey scheduled and the first exploration well expected to be drilled within the initial period following the PSA signing. To support its operations, Cybele has partnered with Well Expertise (now part of Elemental Energies), a Norway-based company with extensive experience in shallow-water operations following its July 2024 acquisition. The company has also brought on board Segun Jebutu, a former Lead Geophysicist at ExxonMobil who worked on 25 Guyana oil wells, bringing significant experience in the Guyana-Suriname Basin.

A Closer Look at Cybele Energy

Founded in 2012, Cybele Energy has been a relatively new and unknown player in the international oil and gas exploration and production scene. While the company has been in operation for over a decade, its public profile has been significantly raised by the acquisition of the Guyanese oil block.

CEO Beatrice Mensah-Tayui has operated oil and gas exploration and production services businesses under the Cybele name since 2011, initially focusing on West Africa. Before founding Cybele, she held leadership positions at leading pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, Hoffmann-La Roche, and Johnson & Johnson. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Business Administration from Roosevelt University in Illinois and splits her time between Chicago and Ghana.

A review of the company’s history shows a focus on building its corporate structure and engaging in strategic partnerships. One such collaboration was with the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) in 2022, which appeared to be a corporate social responsibility initiative focused on critical infrastructure, rather than a core oil and gas project.

The Block S7 acquisition is, by all public accounts, Cybele Energy’s most significant venture into upstream oil and gas operations to date. The company’s strategic move to partner with experienced technical firms and personnel underscores a deliberate approach to entering a new and challenging exploration environment. The successful negotiation of the PSA and the significant signing bonus—70% above the minimum requirement—demonstrates a strong commitment to the project and a belief in the potential of Block S7.

Guyana’s Evolving Oil Sector

The signing comes at a critical juncture for Guyana’s oil and gas sector. The first PSA under the new fiscal regime was awarded to a consortium comprising TotalEnergies, QatarEnergy, and Petronas for Block S4, signed just weeks earlier. These new agreements stand in stark contrast to the 2016 Stabroek Block PSA with ExxonMobil, which featured a 2% royalty rate and 75% cost recovery ceiling. The new terms effectively increase Guyana’s government take from approximately 14.5% to 27.5% of gross revenues, plus the newly introduced 10% corporate tax.

The 2022 licensing round, which awarded Block S7 to Cybele, marked Guyana’s first competitive oil block auction and represented a strategic shift in the country’s approach to petroleum resource management. Originally, Cybele was awarded the block in partnership with Liberty Petroleum Corporation of the United States, but the final agreement sees Cybele as the sole signatory and operator.

The Path Forward

The signing of the PSA with Cybele Energy marks another significant step in the development of Guyana’s oil and gas sector. It not only diversifies the range of operators in the country but also sets a new standard for inclusivity and international partnership. As Cybele Energy embarks on its exploration program, all eyes will be on Block S7 to see whether it delivers on its promising potential and contributes to the continued growth of Guyana’s economy.

The agreement also represents a broader trend of African capital and expertise entering Caribbean and South American energy markets, potentially opening new corridors for South-South cooperation in the extractive industries. For Ghana, Cybele’s success represents the growing international reach of Ghanaian enterprise in the global energy sector.

References

1. NCN Guyana Facebook Post
2. Cybele Energy Website (https://cybeleenergy.com/)
3. Guyana Chronicle: “Guyana gets US$17 million in signing bonus from Ghana’s Cybele Energy for S7 Block” (December 9, 2025)
4. News Room Guyana: “US$17M signing bonus as Ghanaian firm gets shallow block offshore Guyana” (December 9, 2025)
5. Guyana Chronicle: “Ghanaian firm teams up with engineering heavyweight ahead of signing for Guyana shallow-water block” (December 7, 2025)
6. Demerara Waves: “Ghanaian company inks agreement for 400 million barrels of oil Guyana concession” (December 9, 2025)
7. Cybele Energy: “Cybele Energy Ltd Partners with GWCL for Site Visit” (2022)
8. Elemental Energies: “Elemental Energies acquires Norway’s Well Expertise AS” (July 2024)

📢 Please support the Guyana Business Journal & Magazine today

The Guyana Business Journal is committed to delivering thoughtful, data-driven insights on the most critical issues shaping Guyana’s future—from oil and gas to climate change, governance, and development. We invite you to support us if you value and believe in the importance of independent Guyanese-led analysis. Your contributions help us sustain rigorous research, expand access, and amplify the voices of informed individuals across the Caribbean and the diaspora.

The Guyana Business Journal Editorial Board welcomes reflections and submissions at terrence.blackman@guyanabusinessjournal.com.